BADMINTON megastar Carolina Marín has reaffirmed her place as the world's best female in the history of the sport after clinching her sixth European championship win on the trot – in an express final which saw her dispatch her rival in just 41 minutes.
Badminton whizz-kid Carolina Marín, 28, celebrates her victory in the European championship final against Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour…again
Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour – whom Carolina also beat in the European championship finals in 2016 - took the reserve championship title, returning home with a silver medal, after a two-set match ending on 21-10 and 21-12 to Carolina, who has spent a good deal of the last three years away from the scene due to an ongoing knee injury.
She broke a ligament at the Indonesian Open in January 2019, crashing out of the final, and spent the rest of the year recovering from surgery – only for 2020 to see every single sporting circuit on earth shut down due to the Covid pandemic.
A flare-up means Carolina has been away from the court for the past 11 months, missing the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where she had been tipped for a gold – a repeat of her performance in Rio 2016.
But this morning's European championship final in Madrid proved she was back on form – and then some – as she carried off the crown she has held onto fast since 2014.
The Huelva-born prodigy left a trail of high-calibre rivals in her wake – The Netherlands' Gayle Mahulette, Estonia's Kristin Kuuba, Belgium's Lianne Tan, and Denmark's Mia Blichfeldt, who was seeded second – and only dropped one set throughout the entire tournament, during the quarter-finals against Denmark's Line Hojmark Kjærsfeldt, who was the sole fellow competitor who really forced Carolina to work for her win.
She sailed through matches with the Czech Republic's Kateřina Tomalová, Ukraine's Mariya Ulitina, and Turkey's Neslihan Yiğit before her final, and lightning-quick, confrontation with Kirsty Gilmour.
As well as six consecutive European championship titles and a gold medal from her only Olympic Games so far, Carolina holds three world championship trophies and has her sights set on Paris 2024.
She admitted that after her broken knee ligament forced her to scratch from Tokyo 2020, her sole thoughts since have been on winning a gold at the next Olympics in the French capital.
