Badminton ace Kirsty Gilmour has to settle for European Games silver

Gilmour’s last four encounter had seen her recover from the loss of the first set to beat Danish top seed Line Hoemark Kjaersfeldt 13-21,21-16, 21-8 to get her through to the gold medal match.

That result gave her a shot at the final 24 hours later in Minsk, but she could not repeat the triumph and lost out to Denmark’s Mia Blichfeld, below, to finish second.

Gilmour was always behind the 21-year-old, who improved on last year’s bronze with a 21-16, 21-17 victory.

“I’ll maybe be happy on the flight home, but now it is a bit raw,” 25-year-old Gilmour, the third seed, said after the match.

“It’s been a great week and just to be on the podium was a bare minimum expectation for me.

“My highlight of the tournament would be the second and third sets on Saturday against Line (Hoemark Kjaersfeldt) when I played some good stuff.

“I think I recognised what my problem was and I really turned it round and I played very well in that semi and I got a lot of confidence going into the final.

“I just couldn’t snatch it [the gold medal] away from Mia (Blichfeldt) – she played pretty well.”

With the World Championships coming up in Basel in Switzerland between August 19-25 the European Games marked the start of a busy competitive spell for Gilmour.

“After Minsk I have trips to Russia and Japan and then we have the Worlds and then Taipei and Vietnam so I really will be notching up the air miles,” the world No 27 who went to the Olympics in 2016 said.

“It will be quite crazy, but you always want to test yourself against the best.

“In Minsk it was a tough competition, but I am feeling in a good place heading into the next few challenges now.”