GB top Para-canoe medal table at Euro Championships
Laura Sugar added a European title to her Olympic and World Championship crowns [Getty Images]
Great Britain's Para-canoe team added a further three medals on the final day of the European Championships to finish top of the medal table.
The team finished with nine medals in all - four golds, four silvers and one bronze - seven medals clear of any other country.
Advertisement
Laura Sugar raced to victory in the KL3 200m event, finishing 1.747 seconds ahead of France's Nelia Barbosa.
The win means Sugar has now added a European title to her Olympic and World Championship crowns.
Edward Clifton added silver by finishing behind Portugal's Norberto Mourao in the men's VL2 200m event, while Stuart Wood finished runner-up in the VL3 200m.
Charlotte Henshaw won two of Great Britain's six medals on Saturday, winning the KL2 and claiming silver in the VL3.
Henshaw was beaten in the VL3 women's final by compatriot Hope Gordon, who won by half a length.
Olympic silver medallist David Phillipson, 36, held off Italy's Christian Volpi to win the KL2 men's final in a time of 41.516 seconds.
Jonny Young claimed silver in the men's KL3 final, while Taylor Gough earned a bronze in the VL1 final on his international debut.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
31 minutes ago
- New York Times
Tottenham target Antoine Semenyo's two-footedness strikes fear into opponents
A version of this article was originally published in April 2025 Antoine Semenyo is one of the Premier League's most balanced players. He is capable of dribbling, passing and shooting with either foot, thanks to his parents, as he revealed in an interview with The Athletic in October last year. It helps to explain why the 25-year-old Bournemouth forward is so admired by other clubs, including Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. The sticking point for any suitor is that Semenyo signed a new contract last July and Bournemouth are thought to value him at £70million ($94m), as reported by The Athletic on Friday. Advertisement His 16 Premier League goal involvements last season (scoring 11, with five assists) put him level with Bukayo Saka of Arsenal and Crystal Palace's Eberechi Eze, two full England internationals. But few can rival Semenyo's ability with either foot: 46 per cent of his shots came with his right foot (with which he got six of those 11 goals) and 54 per cent with his left (the other five). The only player who got closer to a 50-50 split in 2024-25 was Bournemouth team-mate Dango Ouattara (51 per cent left, 49 per cent right). Semenyo took 125 shots in the 2024-25 Premier League, and only Chelsea's Cole Palmer (126) and Mohamed Salah of Liverpool (130) had more. The London-born Ghana international averaged 3.5 of them per 90 minutes, and mixed things up in terms of which foot he used. His ability with both left and right is invaluable in other ways, too, which explains the transfer interest he has received. We took a look at what makes Semenyo such an accomplished Premier League player. Bournemouth's system under head coach Andoni Iraola is defined by off-the-ball pressure and directness in possession. Striker Dominic Solanke contributed to and benefited from both before he moved to Tottenham Hotspur last August, for a club record fee of £65million. Evanilson, Enes Unal and Ouattara have nominally replaced Solanke at centre-forward but Semenyo has proven to be his successor when Bournemouth are out of possession. Signed from Bristol City of the Championship for an initial £9million in January 2023, when Gary O'Neil was head coach, Semenyo is excellent at anticipating the direction of passes, which enables him to intercept in key areas. A fine example came in the 3-1 win against neighbours Southampton last September, shown below. Southampton centre-back Jan Bednarek wins a throw-in in their defensive third, which is tossed back to him. As Bednarek prepares to pass forward, Semenyo races in towards the ball, away from his line of vision. By the time Bednarek plays the pass, Semenyo has stretched his left foot out to intercept. The ball ricocheted off his boot and looped over Bednarek, who was forced back, with Evanilson in close vicinity. Bednarek got there first and managed to hook the ball out for a Bournemouth throw by the corner flag — just the kind of high turnover Iraola wants from his team. Semenyo's anticipation has served him well on the other end of the pitch, too. In this example, from the 4-1 away win against Newcastle United in January, he initially does not press Anthony Gordon — the recipient of Bruno Guimaraes' pass — blocking the path for a ball inside to Tino Livramento instead. But when he notices Gordon is receiving on his weaker left foot, Semenyo sprints towards him, knowing the England forward will require an extra second to switch the ball to his right foot before passing infield to Sandro Tonali. This allows him to make a block, deflecting the pass intended for Tonali towards Ouattara (not in frame) to kickstart a counter-attack. No Premier League forward averaged more blocked passes per 90 last season than Semenyo's 1.6, and he ranked sixth in the division for possessions won in the attacking third at 1.0 per 90. As this graph below shows, his ability to read the play has allowed Semenyo, who has played in the top four divisions of the English game and in non-League, to win the ball in different areas and create openings against unsettled defences. The high regain that ended in a goal (the green dot in the graphic above) came in a 1-1 home draw with Newcastle last August. Semenyo runs in from the blindside to pressure Joelinton — one of the most physical players in the Premier League — and shrugs him off the ball. Having won possession, Semenyo accelerates past Dan Burn and Lloyd Kelly (with help from Evanilson's movement) and gets to the byline. He crosses for Marcus Tavernier, who scores the game's opening goal. In possession, Semenyo constantly looks to drive forward, and his two-footedness causes indecision in defenders' minds, contributing to a 51 per cent take-on success rate. His runs are rarely without purpose, with his six total key passes following a take-on in the 2024-25 Premier League only bettered by Tottenham's Dejan Kulusevski's seven. Iraola has primarily used him on the left flank, but he has played on the right too — as seen in the example above — and his ability to weave a path both on the inside and outside allows him to thrive. In the reverse fixture against Southampton in February, another 3-1 Bournemouth win, Semenyo receives the ball from Milos Kerkez under pressure. He turns away from James Bree and drives infield. Getting to the edge of the area, he chops the ball from his right onto his left, giving Ouattara time to get himself back onside. The chop leaves Southampton's Will Smallbone in a heap on the turf and Semenyo then passes to Ouattara, who sees his shot saved by Aaron Ramsdale. Semenyo has benefited from the continuous off-the-ball movements in Iraola's system. Like Solanke in 2023-24, he is an active contributor to Bournemouth's style beyond his returns in the final third. Their direct approach involves using long passes from back to front, and Semenyo's hold-up play has proved crucial. Advertisement Goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga played 44 passes to Semenyo in the league last season, and 17 of those (39 per cent) came in matches against Brighton & Hove Albion, Brentford, Liverpool and Tottenham — four of the league's five best pressing teams. Iraola's centre-backs have done the same, too. David Brooks' 77th-minute goal in the 1-0 win against Everton in January is a good example. Centre-back Dean Huijsen lofts a pass forward towards Semenyo… …who is initially ahead of James Tarkowski but changes direction to win the first header. With Everton's defence dragged to the left, Brooks has space to run to the far post. Semenyo wins that header, flicking the ball on to Kerkez, who crosses for the Welshman to score. Another example, from December's 1-1 draw with West Ham United, encapsulates Bournemouth's blueprint. Arrizabalaga goes long towards the right, where Semenyo leaps to win the first header, guiding it to Evanilson, who then flicks it on to Justin Kluivert. Kluivert heads it forward for Semenyo, who has now escaped his marker. He races through, but drags the shot wide. Which brings us neatly on to the matter of Semenyo's end product. Bournemouth have encouraged Semenyo to shoot more, and he has obliged. But he can be wasteful, and has scored just five of his 17 Opta-defined 'big chances' in the league. He has hit the post twice and forced saves, but missed presentable opportunities. Perhaps the most glaring of those misses came in the 2-0 defeat of Arsenal in October, when Bournemouth were trying to break down a stubborn defence following William Saliba's first-half red card. A backheel from Kerkez allows Ouattara to dribble to the byline on the left. As Arsenal scramble to protect their box, Semenyo drifts to the far post, behind Riccardo Calafiori, to meet Ouattara's cross. He lets the ball run across him, before sending a shot over the crossbar. His decision-making has left team-mates frustrated on occasion, too. Again, Semenyo has been urged to go for goal more often, because he can finish with either foot, like this January strike in the 2-2 draw at Chelsea… … or this precise finish in the 5-0 stroll past Nottingham Forest later that same month. Though he turned 25 in January, 2024-25 was only Semenyo's second full season of top-flight football. Having fallen through the academy net, he was attending college before joining Bristol City, who loaned him out to non-League (Bath City), League Two (Newport County) and League One (Sunderland) sides to gain experience. Advertisement Few wide players in the Premier League have his repertoire of qualities with and without the ball, and his two-footedness allows him to play as an inside-forward, an out-and-out winger or even an attacking wing-back. Semenyo has said he wants to play for a team competing in the Champions League or Europa League — his recent performances suggest he has the quality to operate at those levels.
New York Times
36 minutes ago
- New York Times
Antonio Cordero: What are Newcastle getting and what is their plan for him?
Antonio Cordero boasts unique talent and promise — his former coach, Isaac Jimenez, describes his attacking instincts as 'innate' — and Newcastle United insiders believe he has greater potential than Ayoze Perez did when he was signed 11 years ago. Yet Newcastle's vision is for the 18-year-old winger to be just one in a long line of exciting youngsters they recruit early and develop into top-level stars. Advertisement Ideally, Cordero, Vakhtang Salia, Baran Yildiz et al will in time populate Eddie Howe's first team, saving on vast transfer fees in a footballing landscape increasingly shaped by financial fair play (FFP) regulations. But, should they fall short, Newcastle's model aims to sell such players on for a profit which can then be reinvested. For as much excitement as Cordero is understandably generating — following his teenage exploits with Malaga, plus well-documented interest from Real Madrid and Barcelona — he is not going to be immediately parachuted into Howe's senior squad once he officially joins on July 1. Instead, a loan destination is currently being identified, with a move to another of Europe's big-five leagues preferred by some inside Newcastle, given it would represent an ideal step up from Spain's Segunda Division (second tier). La Liga clubs have expressed an interest, which would suit Cordero culturally but may not challenge him enough physically, and he is also on the radars of top sides in the Netherlands and Belgium. Cordero played 60 first-team matches for Malaga, 39 of them in the second tier, scoring seven goals and providing nine assists. As impressive as that is for a teenager, there is an acknowledgement that the jump from there to an elite European league is still sizeable. Newcastle will not rush into a decision and are determined to find a club where Cordero can play regularly, test himself at a higher level and develop robustness and further tactical understanding. It will form part of a (minimum) 24-month plan which Newcastle are looking to implement for their young recruits, having learnt lessons from Garang Kuol's stuttered progression after he was signed at age 18 and then having seen the hugely significant Premier League's profit and sustainability rules (PSR) benefits of selecting the perfect loan to rapidly grow Yankuba Minteh's worth. Advertisement Cordero, nicknamed 'Antonito', is deemed to be above Newcastle Under-21s level and does not yet automatically qualify for a British work permit. Rather than use one of the four exemptions each club holds, Newcastle believe his development is best served by returning to continental Europe for 2025-26, before his situation is assessed this time next year and either another loan is selected or he pushes for inclusion in Howe's first-team setup. Reaching a point where he can compete for Premier League minutes inside 12-to-24 months will be challenging for him, however. That is despite Cordero's unquestionable potential and his eye-catching performances at the ongoing Under-19 European Championship, where he scored and assisted in a 3-1 group-stage win against host nation Romania last Monday, helping Spain into a semi-final with Germany today (Monday). Steve Nickson has been critical in the identification of emerging talent and, just as the head of recruitment spotted Perez at Tenerife over a decade ago, he was influential in luring Cordero to Tyneside, despite fierce competition. Cordero was still on the 'cadet' contract at Malaga which he signed just after his 16th birthday and, while the club are believed to have attempted to renew, they are in a complex financial situation. The player recently joined Pini Zahavi's Gol International agency — the Israeli has dealt with Newcastle before, including agreeing a contract extension for Sean Longstaff in 2022 — and the decision was made to run down his Malaga deal. Barcelona made contact last summer, alongside reported interest from Saudi Pro League clubs, while Real Madrid were scouting him as recently as April. That is not to suggest he was going to join either of their Champions League squads. For the two Spanish giants, Cordero was initially seen as an option for Castilla and Barcelona Atletic (Madrid and Barcelona's respective 'B teams'), who compete in Spain's third and fourth tiers respectively. Advertisement While those were viewed as backwards moves in Cordero's career — given he's already had a standout season in the second division — the youngster was impressed by Newcastle, who presented the most attractive and realistic pathway to immediate top-tier European football and, it is hoped, eventually into their first team. Financially, their offer was also said to be better than those of the Clasico clubs. 'I am a person who likes to aspire high,' Cordero told Newcastle's website when his signing was confirmed this month. 'Why not come to one of the best places in the world to do it?'. Paul Mitchell, the club's outgoing sporting director, has placed additional focus on sourcing top young talents during his 12-month tenure. Dan Ashworth, his predecessor, increased the budget for signing youngsters, while Mitchell has championed even greater emphasis on this area, telling others at Newcastle it is about 'safeguarding the club's future'. It will form a key part of his successor's remit, too. Newcastle recognise that the average age of many European squads is dropping and that places greater importance on signing younger players earlier, thereby theoretically reducing transfer fees further down the line. Alongside Nickson and Mitchell, Jack Ross, the head of strategic technical football partnerships, also played a part in convincing Cordero of the long-term strategy Newcastle would put in place for him during visits to southern Spain. Shola Ameobi, loan coordinator, and Peter Ramage, assistant loans manager, report into Ross and that department leads the handover process for emerging talent. They are conducting due diligence on potential temporary destinations — Mitchell said earlier this month that it's vital Cordero gets loaned to a club where he can be 'challenged and build on his experiences' — while the loans department now has a dedicated physio, strength-and-conditioning coach and psychologist who will work closely with all loanees. A right-footed attacker, Cordero operated largely from the left last season, but he can play on both flanks and as a No 10. He is renowned for his creativity and for having an eye for a goal. His first of those at senior level was a 121st-minute strike against Tarragona in extra time of the play-off final to secure Malaga's promotion to the second tier last year. Advertisement Speaking about Cordero's strengths, his former Malaga youth coach Jimenez says: 'The gesture of facing and putting the ball inside, the one-on-one, those technical gestures, knowing how to choose the moment to be vertical or to have a pause, that is innate — since he was a little boy.' Physically, Cordero has grown significantly. He was deemed slight at Sevilla and neighbours Real Betis, the club Malaga poached him from almost four years ago. 'When he arrived, he was very skinny,' Jimenez says. 'But right now he is one of the best physical players in the Spanish second division.' His mental fortitude and resilience was also noted by Newcastle during their scouting trips. Cordero was booed inside his own club's stadium, La Rosaleda, once it became an open secret that he would be leaving. Rather than be cowed by the negative environment, Cordero responded by asking to take a penalty against Granada in March, which he scored. 'The boy has a winning character, is competitive and is not afraid of challenges,' says Jimenez. 'He is not a footballer conditioned by the environment. In fact, he comes out on top.' That is certainly the hope at Newcastle. The big idea is that Cordero, like Minteh before him, either generates a huge profit or joins their first-team squad. Crucial to that is plotting his development perfectly, with a European loan the first step of their 24-month plan.
New York Times
41 minutes ago
- New York Times
Crystal Palace and Lyon in Europa League is a problem – but multi-club crackdown is too little too late
It's there in black and white. On the pitch and off it, football's rulebook can often be infuriatingly vague, but article 5.01 of UEFA's regulations for its club tournaments is pretty straightforward. 'No one,' it reads, 'may simultaneously be involved, either directly or indirectly, in any capacity whatsoever in the management, administration and/or sporting performance of more than one club participating in a UEFA club competition.' Advertisement It goes on: 'No individual or legal entity may have control or influence over more than one club participating in a UEFA club competition' — by which it specifies 'holding a majority of the shareholders' voting rights' or 'being able to exercise by any means a decisive influence in the decision-making of the club'. That is why Crystal Palace's dreams of competing in their first European campaign hang in the balance. The Premier League club's largest shareholder, Eagle Football Holdings, also owns the biggest stake in French club Lyon, who, like Palace, have qualified for next season's Europa League — and that creates a problem. And so it should. Why on earth should UEFA, European football's governing body, allow any two clubs under the same ownership or management structure to enter the same competition? Of course there should be rules to guard against such conflicts of interest and threats to integrity. Palace have spent the past couple of weeks quietly making their case to UEFA, pointing out that while John Textor of Eagle Football Holdings is indeed their largest shareholder, he has just 25 per cent of their voting rights. Indeed, in an interview with The Athletic in May last year, Textor found himself conceding that his vision of integrating Palace into his Eagle Football empire with Lyon, RWD Molenbeek (Belgium), Botafogo (Brazil) and FC Florida (United States) had proved unachievable because the south London club are effectively run by chairman Steve Parish. Palace's other investors have put pressure on Textor to sell Eagle's 43 per cent stake. Woody Johnson, owner of the NFL's New York Jets, has made an offer but is yet to meet his valuation. A consortium of sport and entertainment executives, which includes the NBA star Jimmy Butler, has also held discussions with Textor. It remains to be seen whether such a move would satisfy UEFA's club financial control body; the deadline for teams to make and register changes to their ownership structure, ahead of participation in the coming season's European competitions, passed on March 1. If Palace are expelled from the Europa League, they cannot drop into the third-tier Conference League because, summing up this whole tangled web, the Danish club Brondby have already qualified for that competition and are owned by Global Football Holdings, an investment vehicle led by Palace part-owner David Blitzer. And Brondby, like Lyon, would take precedence over Palace because UEFA's rules stipulate that in issues relating to multi-club ownership, priority is given to the team finishing in the highest position in their respective domestic leagues. Advertisement Sympathy will flow naturally for Palace if the UEFA decision goes against them. Everyone could see what winning the FA Cup last month meant to their supporters, the first major trophy success in their history, but it was also warmly welcomed by the wider football community because beating Manchester City in the final was an underdog triumph of the type that has become depressingly rare in the sport — not least in England, where trophies had appeared to become the preserve of a handful of rich, powerful clubs. Sympathy also flows naturally for Drogheda United, of the League of Ireland, who have already been excluded from next season's Conference League because of the possibility — only a one-in-15 chance in the second qualifying round — that it could have brought them into direct competition with Danish club Silkeborg, who are also under the ownership of the Alabama-based Trivela Group. Reading through Drogheda's statement last Monday after their appeal was rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, you could not help but feel their anguish: a 'community-driven club… who fight every day to punch above their weight', who felt that a first European campaign in 12 years, by virtue of winning the FAI Cup for only the second time, would have been 'transformational… not just financially, but emotionally for our players, our staff, and our community'. But like it or not, there is still a conflict of interest — whether potential or actual — when two clubs in the same competition are operating under the same ownership. There are, as of last June, regulations to prevent it. And so there should be. What kind of governing body would UEFA be if there were not? The problem is that UEFA's belated clampdown on multi-club ownership goes nothing like far enough. It doesn't deter multi-club ownership at all. It just seeks to offer a semblance of compliance — a little window-dressing, really — where UEFA's competitions are concerned, as if the only issue with multi-club networks is the relatively small (but fast-growing) threat of teams under the same ownership playing each other, rather than the much more serious issues of them losing their sovereignty, losing their identity, losing their purpose. Advertisement UEFA's most recent benchmarking report, titled 'the European Club Finance and Investment Landscape', detailed that 105 top-flight sides across Europe are now part of a multi-club structure. That includes 15 in the Premier League, 11 in Italy's Serie A, 10 in Ligue 1 in France, nine in Spain's La Liga and six in the German Bundesliga. Some clubs have done very well out of multi-club ownership — perhaps most obviously RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg and Girona — but as the phenomenon has grown, the success stories have come to be vastly outweighed by the number of historic names across Europe whose identity and ambitions have been sold to overseas investors (usually, but not always, from the United States) who regard them as little more than stocks in an investment portfolio. Some of those investors can at least claim to offer some level of expertise. Many do not. One of the fastest-growing multi-club networks in recent years was that of 777 Partners, which bought significant stakes in teams in Spain (Sevilla), Italy (Genoa), Belgium (Standard Liege), France (Red Star of Paris), Germany (Hertha Berlin), Australia (Melbourne Victory) and Brazil (Rio de Janeiro's Vasco da Gama). Shortly after it agreed a deal to buy Premier League side Everton — for which it failed to raise the necessary funds — the 777 Partners empire crumbled, plunging its entire stable of clubs into uncertainty or worse. As outlined in this column in 2023, there are so many reasons to be concerned by the rise of multi-club ownership and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin's apparent ambivalence to the issue. As important as the sporting integrity question is — the idea that, for example, Palace could come up against Textor's Lyon in the Europa League — it is far less of an issue for the future of football than the existential threat multi-club ownership poses to teams, and indeed to entire leagues, if they serve as mere satellites to those at the top of the chain. But UEFA's long-awaited crackdown only addresses that single issue. It merely requires clubs to jump through a few hoops so that, on paper at least, the appearance of any conflict of interest is averted. Advertisement City Football Group, for example, was required to transfer its shares in Spanish side Girona to independent trustees as a temporary measure through a 'blind trust' structure, under UEFA supervision, to be cleared to play in last season's Champions League, because Manchester City were already in that competition. INEOS was required to do likewise with their shares in France's Nice to play in the Europa League, where they could have faced Manchester United, where INEOS chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe owns a 28.9 per cent stake and has control over sporting matters. In the final weeks of last season, Nottingham Forest announced that Evangelos Marinakis had diluted his control of the club — placing his shares in a blind trust, submitting documents to Companies House in April to say he was no longer a 'person with significant control' of NF Football Investments Limited — to ensure that they would comply with UEFA regulations next season if they ended up in the same competition as his Greek team, Olympiacos. In the event, Olympiacos won the title, so will play in next season's Champions League, whereas Forest ended up in the Conference League. And so, on June 12, there was a filing at Companies House to report that Marinakis was a person with significant control at the City Ground once more. As for whether anything ever really changed beyond the paperwork, we can only take Forest's word for it. But it is worth noting that after Marinakis went onto the pitch to remonstrate with head coach Nuno Espirito Santo after the 2-2 draw with Leicester City on May 11, the club issued a statement in praise of 'our owner' and extolling the strength of 'his leadership, not just through words, but through action and presence'. Please excuse the tangent. The point is simply to underline that, even with his shares placed in a blind trust, Marinakis appeared to be more hands-on at Forest than your typical long-distance Premier League owner would be — more involved than Textor at Palace, certainly. But because this essentially comes down to paperwork, a box had been ticked. Why or how Palace and Drogheda failed to jump through those particular hoops by March 1, only they know. Palace could easily claim that multi-club ownership is so far off their agenda that it did not cross their mind back in March — European qualification likewise, perhaps — but when they have not one but two significant investors with controlling interests in other teams, it looks like a serious oversight. As for Drogheda, they won the FAI Cup last November, so surely they had ample time to ensure compliance. Advertisement That emotionally-wrought club statement last week mentioned 'months of engagement, constructive dialogue, countless hours of legal preparation, and multiple proposals based on frameworks that have been accepted in the past' but said that ultimately the club had 'come up short'. Whatever their frustration, the club — and they appeared to be talking for their owners here — said, 'We accept responsibility and we're sorry.' It is genuinely a sad situation. When you think of the various abuses, loopholes and suspicious activities that multi-club ownership allows, no one would suggest that Drogheda (or indeed Palace) are anywhere near the crux of the problem. Drogheda's is a regulatory failure of the type that the big beasts of European football would never make. Or if they did, they would have enough weight behind them — in terms of power, finance and legal backing — to give them every chance of finding a way around it. But none of these blind trusts or cosmetic reshuffles come close to addressing the issue in a meaningful way. The further and deeper the tentacles of multi-club ownership spread, the closer we come to a scenario where, in future, football could be dominated by a handful of rival networks who own the biggest teams in every league on every continent — and whether those networks are owned by energy-drink manufacturers, venture capitalists or sovereign wealth funds, whether or not those sides are temporarily placed into blind trusts for appearances sake, it is a nightmarish vision for a sport whose popularity since the 19th century has been based on the very simple and very appealing principle that clubs exist simply to represent their community. The football authorities have never shown the slightest appetite to tackle the multi-club issue, and it somehow feels entirely typical that the crackdown centres on paperwork. Should two clubs under even partial control of the same individual or entity be allowed to compete in the same competition? No, they should not. But when it comes to addressing the issue of multi-club ownership, excluding clubs like Drogheda and Palace would achieve nothing except to underline the importance of getting the paperwork right.
