Monday, December 23, 2024

Paris 2024: Kirsty Gilmour off to flying start in badminton

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Team GB’s Kirsty Gilmour got her Olympic badminton campaign under way with a comfortable two-set win over Azerbaijan’s Keisha Fatimah Azzahra.

The Scot admitted afterwards she still feels nerves despite it being her third appearance at the Games, but that was not evident from her performance as she romped to a 21-13 21-11 victory.

“We hit the ground running and all the things I planned to do I managed to do, so I’m pretty happy,” she said.

“We’ve had a lot of challenges in the preparation for this, mentally and how to pitch ourselves. We’ve worked through a lot of the emotions that might come up here in training, kind of on purpose and kind of accidentally.

“In that way I feel quite prepared as well, I feel like I’m able to get clarity through those horrible patches. Mentally I feel pretty prepared and physically good too.”

He Bingjiao is the Scot’s next opponent in the pool stage and she beat Gilmour in two sets at the Indonesia Open when they met last month.

Victory for Gilmour would see her progress from the group stage for the first time at the Olympics, but she admits it will be “a real challenge”.

“I didn’t have a great performance when we last played,” the 30-year-old added. “I had a low energy day, so was fighting my way through that.

“We’ve had some really close matches in the past – I’ve taken a few wins and she’s won more recently.

“I’m just really looking forward to it and looking at it as a really positive opportunity to show off and play some good badminton.”

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