EURO GAMES 2015 – Stoeva sisters first sibling success

After Ireland’s Magees were all relegated to bronze, the Stoeva sisters from Bulgaria won the first sibling gold in the badminton competition at the inaugural European Games in Baku.

By Don Hearn.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (archives)

Gabriela and Stefani Stoeva (pictured) of Bulgaria had steamrolled into the women’s doubles final of the badminton at the 2015 Baku European Games but in the gold medal match, they were finally given a run for their money, at least in the second game.  Russia’s Ekaterina Bolotova / Evgeniya Kosetskaya conceded the first game of the final rather easily but came out firing in the second, holding onto the lead until well past the interval.

The Bulgarians surged ahead in the closing minutes, however, and earned themselves three gold medal points at 20-17.  They then seemed to get a case of nerves and looked to be in disarray as the Russians heaped the pressure on to save four match points.  On the fifth, at 22-21, Bolotova seemed to have a golden opportunity as Gabriela Stoeva showed her hand and came rushing to the net.  Bolotova decided too late to try to push it over the advancing Bulgarian and Gabriela reached up to execute the kill that would seal the gold for the top seeds.

Earlier, Ireland saw a second pair of Magee siblings settle for bronze.  Josh and Sam had been trounced in their men’s doubles semi-final by the Russians but in the mixed doubles, too, Sam and sister Chloe Magee (pictured above) were unable to find a way past Gaetan Mittelheisser and Audrey Fontaine of France.

Niclas Nohr / Sara Thygesen of Denmark will be the French pair’s opponents in the final after they beat Beck and Kattenbeck (no relation) of Germany in their semi-final.

Turning silver into gold

The other gold up for grabs on Saturday in Baku was destined to go to one of the pairs that had finished with a silver medal at their last multi-sport games.  Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen (pictured bottom) were of course the favourites.  The reigning All England champions had won silver at the London Olympics and were top seeds in Baku.

Their opponents, though, were the reigning European champions.  Ivan Sozonov and Vladimir Ivanov (pictured) had settled for silver two years ago in their home Universiade, a few thousand kilometres due north.  Then last spring, they did even better, returning to Kazan to beat Boe and Mogense en route to winning the continental title.

Unfortunately for the Russians, the Danes were right on the mark and recorded their most decisive victory to date over the #2 seeds, winning 21-8, 21-13 in under half an hour.  Denmark is now looking ahead to the mixed doubles and both singles finals, each of which features one Danish finalist.

Click here for complete results

For complete video of the Friday matches, see the Baku 2015 Youtube channel here