Carolina Marín, gold medalist at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and triple badminton world champion, reappeared this Tuesday at the European Championships in Madrid with victory eleven months later. The woman from Huelva beat the Czech Katerina Tomalova (21-10 and 21-6). Marín, who returned under unusual expectation, jumped onto the track ready to defend her continental reign and did so in just 29 minutes. After this victory, the Huelva-born rival in the round of 16 will be the Ukrainian María Ulitina, 59 in the world, who beat the Portuguese Sonia Gonçalves.
Tomalova started the first round better, she was initially ahead on the scoreboard, but after a few scoring points she was clearly surpassed by the Spanish, who made the Czech suffer a lot with her low left hand shot.
Azurmendi falls in doubles
For her part, Clara Azurmendi said goodbye to the Madrid European Championship after falling in the duel in pairs with Beatriz Corrales (21-10, 18, 21 and 16-21) against the French Flavie Vallet and Emilie Vercelot. The Donostiarra, number 43 in the world, had high hopes for this tournament but on Monday she fell in singles against the aggressiveness of the Bulgarian Mitsova 2-1 (13-21, 21-14 and 17-21).
