European Gymnastics: Rebecca Downie wins gold in uneven bars
- Published
Great Britain's Rebecca Downie won gold in the uneven bars at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The 22-year-old scored 15.500 to finish ahead of Olympic champion Aliya Mustafina (15.266) and fellow Russian Daria Spiridonova (14.966).
Downie is the first British woman other than Beth Tweddle to win an individual European title.
"It's such an amazing feeling, I'm so happy," she told BBC Sport.
Downie, who had not won an individual medal since claiming bronze on the beam at the 2006 Commonwealth Games,, external added: "I think you could see the emotion when I landed and it was just a massive relief.
"Every final I have missed out [on a medal] has made it harder to pick myself up and keep coming back but moments like today prove it was all worth it."
Rebecca Tunney, who was the youngest member of the Team GB squad at the London Olympics, finished only 0.033 points off the podium in the uneven bars final.
"The whole point of today was to gain more experience in my first individual European final so I have to be happy with a clean routine, even though I just missed out," she said.
British senior debutant Claudia Fragapane, 16, was thought to have medal prospects in both the vault and floor finals after impressive qualification scores on Thursday.
However, the Bristol-born teenager endured a difficult finals session, finishing six on the vault and eighth on the floor.
"I didn't get what I wanted but it was an amazing experience and the nerves weren't as bad as before the team final (on Saturday), so that has to be a good sign for the future," said Fragapane.
The British junior girls, who won team silver on Wednesday, rounded off their best-ever European Artistic Championships with four further medals - taking their tally to six.
Elle Downie, 15, the younger sister of Becky Downie, added vault gold to the all-around bronze she won on Saturday.
Catherine Lyons, 13, was victorious on the floor, whilst Amy Tinkler, 14, took home silver in the same event and finished third on the vault.
The men's European Gymnastics Championships, featuring British senior and junior teams, begin on Wednesday.
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