Kolesnichenko wins fourth title for Russia

GLASGOW: Svetlana Kolesnichenko, the new dominant force of synchronised swimming, completed her immaculate and innovative five-day programme at the European Championships on Tuesday by doubling her gold medal tally to four.

As Russia rounded off another masterful championships with three golds, the 24-year-old Kolesnichenko repeated her quadruple haul from last year’s world championships in Budapest by taking the solo free and duet free titles.

She added them to the pair of technical golds she had already claimed at the Scotstoun Sports Campus.For the second time, she teamed up for a golden duet with the outstanding 17-year-old Varvara Subbotina, adding the free title to the technical gold they had annexed on the opening day of the programme.

Their total of 96.7000, which relegated Ukraine’s Anastasiya Savchuk and Yelyzaveta Yakhno (93.4000) to silver and Italians Linda Cerruti and Costanza Ferro (92.1333) to bronze, was even superior to the mark they had been awarded in their technical routine.

After a three-hour break, Kolesnichenko returned to her solo speciality, again comfortably defeating Cerruti, who took silver, and bronze winner Yakhno.Meanwhile, Britain’s divers enjoyed a triumphant day with Olympic champion Jack Laugher leading a double success at Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool.

Laugher again demonstrated why he is the most successful British diver in history as he took their first European gold in the one metre springboard event while never having to produce anything like his best.

His predictable win followed a rather less expected victory for the new British pairing of Lois Toulson and 15-year-old Eden Cheng, who took the synchronised 10m platform title in dramatic fashion.

In only their second competition together, the pair had been lying fifth with two rounds left only to produce two magnificent dives to shoot into the gold medal position as their opponents faltered.

Another 15-year-old, Ekaterina Beliaeva and Iuliia Timoshinina of Russia had been in pole position but made a hash of their final effort and ended with silver on 288.60 points to the Britons’ 289.74.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting this, we’ve only been put together this year so we’re both really happy,” said Toulson.Jolanda Neff and Lars Forster made light of a punishing course to ride away from their opposition and fashion a golden Swiss double in the mountain biking races.