European gymnastics silver for GB men

Britain’s Nile Wilson, Dan Purvis, Kristian Thomas, Courtney Tulloch and Louis Smith MBE have retained their European Championships team silver medal in a high quality final in Bern (SUI).

The team all contributed superb routines to the total with Nile and Dan Purvis leading the way with quality all-around performances and stand out routines such as Louis Smiths pommel, Kristian’s vault and Courtney’s rings adding to the team total of 268.427 points (over a point above their qualifying score). Russia took the gold medal scoring 271.378 whilst host nation Switzerland (263.278 points) rose to the occasion to take surprise bronze much to the delight of the home crowd.

The British team were satisfied with their performances, Kristian Thomas commented: “It was a great competition with lots of positives for us all individually and as a team. The main focus at these championships is to use them to help us be at our best for Rio and I think we can all be happy that we have done that and of course it’s great to have a medal for our country.”

Louis Smith echoed his comments saying: “It’s incredible and means a lot to me personally to have won the silver medal with these guys. For us to have completed 18 clean routines in qualifying and the final shows we are on track. This is very much a build-up event to Rio and we all still have more to give which is a huge positive.”

Britain had qualified brilliantly through to the final in second spot …

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