Coles collects bronze at Euro Junior Team Champs
14th April 2009Bath badminton player Chris Coles collected a bronze medal with the England team at the European Junior Team Championships in Milan.
Sixteen-year-old Coles was a member of the England team that won all of their pool games at the under-19 championships and then beat France in the quarter-finals in the first knockout contest.
That brought England up against Denmark in the semi-finals. Denmark took the match 3-0, with Emil Holst beating Coles 21-15, 16-21, 21-12 during the tie. Denmark went on to take gold with England netting one of the bronze medals.
The team competition was followed by the European Junior Championships at the same venue. Coles won his opening two contests, but then went down 21-18, 15-21, 21-17 to Hans van Os of the Netherlands.
Josh Green, who is also 16 and trains at TeamBath’s high performance badminton centre at the University of Bath, also took part in the men’s singles in Milan, just missing out on a place in the quarter-finals.
After a first round bye, Green beat Rui Campos of Portugal and then despatched Scotland’s 5/8 seed Martin Campbell 12-21, 21-18, 21-11 in the third round.
That brought him up against another seed, Germany’s Richard Domke with a place in the quarter-finals at stake – but the 9/16 seed went through 21-16, 21-15.
Both Coles and Green are on the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) programme at the University of Bath.