Russia wins beach soccer gold in European Games

Russia confirmed its pre-tournament reputation as favourites by winning the beach soccer gold medal at the European Games on Sunday, beating Italy 3-2.

The Russians added the Baku 2015 title to their 2011 and 2013 World Cup triumphs and confirmed their status as the world’s top team.

Goals from Egor Shaikov and Yury Gorchinskiy put Russia 2-0 up in the first period and when Ilia Leonov added a third in the second period, it looked all over.

World number 11 Italy fought back with third-period goals from Gabriele Gori and Alessio Frainetti, but it was too little, too late.

Portugal took bronze with a 6-5 win over Switzerland.

France ended the judo competition in sensational style, securing gold medals in both the men’s and women’s team events on the final day of the Games.

A remarkable series of quick-fire wins gave France victory over Germany in the women’s team final, before the French men’s team followed up by defeating strong favourites Georgia, both with scores of 4-1.

Germany took the lead in the best-of-five women’s match but France recovered and Marie Eve Gahie needed just 10 seconds to claim victory over Szaundra Diedrich, who was flat out on the mat while Gahie and her teammates leapt up and down and screamed with delight as France won gold.

To round off a spectacular series of wins, Madeleine Malonga also won in 10 seconds, defeating Luise Malzahn. Those three victories took a grand total of 35 seconds.

Four successive wins by France became seven when their men won the first three bouts in their final against Georgia to clinch the gold.

Loic Korval had an ippon against Amiran Papinashvili at 66kg, and Pierre Duprat won a marathon 73kg round with a golden score against Nugzari Tatalashvili.

The deciding win was earned by Loic Pietri against Avtandili Tchrikishvili at -81kg.

Word number nine Simone Christensen of Denmark won the women’s BMX final, racing to gold in a time of 37.074 seconds.

Magalie Pottier of France took silver in 37.287 seconds and Czech Aneta Hladikova the bronze in 37.891 seconds.

Dutch rider Laura Smulders, a bronze medallist in the London 2012 Olympics, finished in a disappointing fifth place.

France’s Joris Daudet won gold in the men’s BMX final, leading from the first bend and finishing in 33.012 seconds. The world number four

finished less than a second ahead of Dutchman Twan Van Gendt who clocked 33.887 seconds and David Graf of Switzerland who was third in 34.166 seconds.

After 17 days of competition, the inaugural European Games ended in a spectacular closing ceremony in Baku.

Russia topped the medals table with a total of 164, 79 of them gold. Hosts Azerbaijan were second with 56 (21 gold), and Great Britain third with 47 (18 gold).

Germany claimed fourth place in the gold medal count with 66 overall medals but just 16 gold and France were fifth with 12 gold medals and 43 overall. Italy completed the top six with 10 golds out of 47 overall.