The Portuguese mission to the Kraków2023 European Games won its 16th medal this Sunday in the third edition of the event, beating the 15 in Minsk2019 and leaving the 10 in Baku2015 behind.
In the last event with national participation, João Paulo Azevedo, Armelim Rodrigues and José Bruno Faria won bronze in the Olympic pit team event in hunting gun shooting, in Wroclaw, to take the 16th Portuguese podium in Poland.
This is Portugal’s most successful edition of the European Games ever, winning three golds, seven silvers and six bronzes after a two-week journey that ended in the ‘last leg’.
On Saturday, two bronze medals, from the women’s table tennis team and the women’s beach soccer team, equaling the 15 in Minsk2019, were now surpassed.
A ‘journey’ that started with the bronze of karateka Ana Cruz, followed by another third place, by canoeist Francisca Laia, in K1 200 meters, a distance that brought the country its first gold, by Messias Baptista, new champion of Europe.
In athletics, Auriol Dongmo shot for gold in the shot put, João Coelho was silver in the 400m and Isaac Nader also managed to finish second in the 1,500m, ending the modality’s wealth of podiums, achieved in Chorzow.
Back to canoeing, Fernando Pimenta won silver in the K1 500 meters and Kevin Santos and Teresa Portela were crowned European champions in the K2 200 meters.
In muaythai, Gonçalo Noites and Matilde Rodrigues won silver, while the duo of Miguel Oliveira and Afonso Fazendeiro secured bronze for Portugal in padel.
On June 27, Marcos Freitas managed to finish second in the men’s singles table tennis tournament and came close to another medal in teams, with a fourth place, on the same day Miguel surprised Frazão with silver in the tournament of sword, in fencing.
After the women’s teams’ two podiums on Saturday, today’s bronze medal in Wroclaw, nearly 300 kilometers from Krakow, enabled Portugal to surpass the performance of Minsk2019, the most successful Portuguese mission to date.
There were three golds, six silvers and six bronzes, so one less silver, so this is the most valuable edition for Portugal in terms of medals.
Earlier, in Baku2015, at the debut of this competition, there were three golds, four silvers and three bronzes.
The third edition of the European Games ends today in Krakow and Poland’s Malopolska region, with 30 sports on the program and 48 participating countries, including Portugal, which had a delegation of more than 200 athletes.
Source: DN
