Kenny, Bastianelli seal track, road race titles

Laura Kenny won her second track cycling European championship gold medal yesterday, adding the women’s elimination race to the team pursuit title she won on Friday, even as Italian Marta Bastianelli won a sprint finish with the great Marianne Vos to strike gold in the road race.Kenny, the 26-year-old quadruple Olympic gold medallist, secured her 12th career European medal defeating Germany’s Anna Knauer over the final two-lap shoot-out, with Russia’s Evgenia Augustinas taking bronze.For Kenny, who resumed competitive riding earlier this year, the win brought with it the added bonus of being able to return home and present her one-year-old son with another ‘Bonnie the seal’, the Glasgow 2018 official mascot, after the dog got the first one.“I was thinking I didn’t want to leave Albie for nothing because he wasn’t very happy this morning. I’m glad I’ve got another medal to take home to him — and he needed another seal mascot because the dog got the last one,” Kenny, who is married to men’s track cycling star Jason, told the BBC.Kenny will try and add a third European crown when she competes in the Madison with Katie Archibald on Tuesday.In the road race, the Dutch team seemed to be controlling affairs at the end of the 130km race, ready to set up victory at the Glasgow Green finish for Vos, only for former world champion Bastianelli to beat her to the punch with a scintillating final burst. Germany’s Lisa Brennauer took the bronze.Russian women eclipsed in apparatus eventsRussia’s gymnasts dominated the women’s team event at the European Championships but none of them were able to strike gold in the individual apparatus events yesterday.Hungary’s Boglarka Devai won the vault, Belgium’s Nina Derwael successfully defended her asymmetric bars title, Dutch Olympic champion Sanne Wevers prevailed on the balance beam and French starlet Melanie de Jesus was victorious on the floor.Angelina Melnikova, the outstanding performer in Russia’s win on Friday, was the only member of the victorious team to win an apparatus medal, taking silver in the vault and bronze on the asymmetric bars at the SSE Hydro arena.Gmelin and Borch win scullsSwitzerland’s Jeannine Gmelin and Norway’s Kjetil Borch landed the blue riband single sculls titles yesterday as their respective countries enjoyed a superb final day of the regatta.World champion Gmelin powered to another emphatic victory just 75 minutes after compatriot Michael Schmid had won the lightweight men’s single sculls.The Norwegian teams had already celebrated a victory for Kristoffer Brun and Are Strandli in the lightweight men’s double sculls when Borch rowed to his major singles title after enjoying previous world championship glory in a double.Borch, who won an Olympic bronze in Rio de Janeiro in the double alongside the great Olaf Tufte before going it alone, pronounced himself thrilled but “extremely worn out” after his breakthrough singles title.Peaty’s breaststroke world record adjustedBritish swimming great Adam Peaty’s world record for the 100 metres breaststroke set on Saturday has been adjusted from 57seconds to 57.10sec due to a problem with the timing mechanism, the European Swimming Federation announced yesterday.The 23-year-old showed a return to his old form after obliterating his rivals in Glasgow at the European Championships to improve on his old world mark of 57.13sec set on the way to winning Olympic gold at Rio 2016.However, organisers revealed a “configuration delay” of 0.10 seconds affecting the first nine races of the session.Germany eye Euro domination as Warholm lines up doubleAFP/BerlinJohannes Vetter headlines a strong German team that will bid to dominate the European Athletics Championships at Berlin’s Olympic stadium this week, while Norway’s Karsten Warholm has lined up a shot at a rare 400m/400m hurdles double.Germany, boasting a squad of 128 athletes, will eye a potential sweep in the men’s javelin given they can start with world champion Vetter, newly-crowned German champion Andreas Hofmann and Rio Olympic gold medallist Thomas Roehler.Estonia’s Magnus Kirt (89.75m) and Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch (89.02m) will be looking to challenge the German triumvirate.“They (the Germans) can all throw over 92 metres, so I’m looking forward to seeing that,” said Germany’s David Storl, the multi-medalled shot putter seeking a fourth successive European title.Storl is one of five reigning European champions representing the host nation, alongside Christina Schwanitz (shot put), Max Hess (triple jump), Cindy Roleder (100m hurdles) and Gesa Felicitas Krause (3000m steeplechase).More medal hopes for Germany also lie in the men’s discus. Olympic champion Christoph Harting is joined by Olympic bronze medallist Daniel Jasinski and older brother Robert in his farewell to major championships competition.Britain could also do well at this 24th edition of the European champs. They have Zharnel Hughes racing the men’s 100m and Dina Asher-Smith going for triple gold in the 100/200/4x100m relay.The European Athletics Championships is part of the newly-launched, multi-sport European Championships that sees competition in athletics, aquatics, rowing, golf, cycling, gymnastics and triathlon.