Baku: At the European Games in Baku, Irish badminton mixed doubles pair Chloe and Sam Magee were guaranteed bronze medals after beating Polish pair Aneta Wojtkow and Pawel Pietryja 21-18, 21-12 in 34 minutes on Friday to advance to the semi-finals.
26-year-old Chloe and 25-year-old Sam will face France’s Gaetan Mittelheisser and Audrey Fontaine in the semi-finals Saturday morning.
Sam Magee has already won a bronze medal with his brother Joshua after they bowed out in the men’s doubles semi-finals. Russian duo Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov proved too hot to handle with the Magees losing 5-21, 9-21.
Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark continued to live up to expectations and played another good semi-finals match as they beat Germans Andreas Heinz/Raphael Beck 21-18, 21-17 to get to the men’s doubles final. Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen will clash with Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov of Russia for the men’s doubles gold on Saturday.
Men’s singles top seed, Irish badminton player Scott Evans squandered five points in the first set and lost to Denmark’s Emil Holst 17-21, 14-21 in the quarter-finals on Friday.
In the women’s doubles semi-finals, Bulgarian badminton players Gabriela Stoeva and Stefani Stoeva scored a convincing victory over Ozge Bayrak and Neslihan Yigit from Turkey with 21-14, 21-9.
The Stoevi sisters will face Ekaterina Bolotova and Evgeniya Kosetskaya from Russia in the final on Saturday.
