Turkey tops table at European Youth Championships

Turkey’s Mete Gazoz and Gulnaz Coskun won the recurve junior men’s and junior women’s individual titles at the 2018 European Youth Championships in Patras, Greece, as the Turkish team finished on top of the medal table at the event with seven golds and 12 podiums in total.

Turkey also won the recurve junior men’s team, compound junior men’s team, compound cadet women’s team, recurve junior mixed team and recurve cadet mixed team events.

Individual champion Gazoz, still just 19 years old, finished second at the last senior European Championships in 2016 and was recently named Mediterranean Games Champion in Tarragona, Spain. 

The Rio 2016 Olympian set a new Turkish national record in qualifying at that event with 683 out of a possible 720 points for the 72-arrow 70-metre ranking round.

Great Britain came second in Patras with four gold and 10 total medals, and Ukraine finished third with two golds and six podium finishes at the tournament.

Denmark’s Simon Olsen, the reigning indoor world champion in his age group, and Russia’s Elizaveta Knyazeva won the compound junior men’s and junior women’s titles.

Daniil Kosenkov of Russia, Layla Annison of Great Britain, and Ukraine’s Oleksandr Pantsyru and Orysia Didych won the individual cadet events.

The 2018 European Youth Championships took place on 26 June to 1 July in Patras, Greece.