CHLOE AND SAM Magee have moved within one victory of a medal at the European Games in Minsk, after the Donegal siblings advanced through to the quarter-finals of the badminton mixed doubles.
A straight sets [21-9, 21-11] win over home favourites Aliaksei Konakh and Krestina Silich of Belarus put the Magees in a good position to advance to the knockout phase, but they had to wait for the other result in their group to go their way.
With France’s Delphine Delrue and Thom Gicquel defeating Russian pair Evgenii Dremin and Evgenia Dimova at the Falcon Club in Minsk, the Irish duo — who won bronze at the 2015 European Games — were assured of a place in the quarter-finals.
“We knew we’d done everything we could do but it was hard to watch the Russians versus the French,” Chloe Magee said.
We knew it was going to be close but we’re happy to be through.
The Magees will now face Robin Tabeling and Selena Piek of the Netherlands in their quarter-final on Friday morning.
Sam added: “In the end, we didn’t need the points difference but it had looked like we would. It’s going to take a world-class performance to get to the next level.”
Meanwhile, there was disappointment for Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen, who is out of the men’s singles at the last-16 stage, having fallen to British eighth seed Toby Penty today.
Team Ireland have already won six medals at the Games, with all of those medals coming in the boxing ring. Michaela Walsh, Grainne Walsh, Kurt Walker and Kellie Harrington all guaranteed themselves at least a bronze yesterday, while Regan Buckley and Michael Nevin did the same on Tuesday.
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