Great Britain's Luke Greenbank has spoken of his delight after clinching a gold medal in the men's 100m backstroke at the European Games today.
Greenbank edged out Russia's Filipp Shopin and Marek Ulrich of Germany to win the top prize at the Baku Aquatics Centre, coming home in a time of 54.76s.
The success got Team GB off to another flying start in the pool, having also picked up three golds and a bronze on the opening day of swimming action yesterday.
After picking up his medal, 17-year-old Greenbank spoke to Sports Mole about his performance.
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Congratulations Luke, you're a European Games gold medallist - how does that feel?
"It's brilliant. It's one of my main events but I'm better at the 200m so it was good to do well in this event."
You must be very confident going into the 200m if you're even better at that!
"Yeah, I've got it tomorrow morning so hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll do pretty well in that as well. I've been swimming well here all week."
What was your expectation going into this race?
"I think I'm seeded about second but I was first after the semi-finals last night, so that sort of gave me a bit of a confidence boost. It was always going to be tough. It was close going into the final and the race there was very close, especially the last 25 metres."
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One of your teammates, Abbie Wood, mentioned that she felt more nerves as a result of being the fastest qualifier going into her final yesterday - is it a case of added confidence or nerves with you?
"Yeah, I reckon it does give me a little bit of confidence. I was a little bit nervous for the race, I'm not going to lie, but that happens to me pretty much every race if I'm honest. But yeah, you've just got to get past that and focus on what you've got to do in the race."
Obviously the time was enough for the gold, but it was actually a fraction slower than your semi-final time - were you happy with it in the final?
"It was slightly slower, but it's still a lot faster than what my old PB was. It was my first time under 55 seconds last night and today again, it shows that I'm swimming pretty well at the minute."
You were third at the turn in that race - were you always confident of closing that gap down in the final 50 metres?
"Yeah, because I'm a 200m swimmer, I like to work that back end of the race a little bit. It sort of spurred me on. I could see it on the screen, which spurred me on to try to pick up my rate in the last 25-15 metres."
Barney Corkhill
