Stonehouse table tennis star Billy Shilton grabbed a gold medal at the ITTF Czech Para Open in Ostrava.
There were plenty of positives for the British Para table tennis team to take into the Paralympic Games in Paris after taking three gold medals in the doubles events.
World champions Shilton and Paul Karabardak (men’s class 14), Joshua Stacey and Aaron McKibbin (men’s class 18) and Fliss Pickard and Bly Twomey (women’s class 14) all won their respective events while Will Bayley and Martin Perry (men’s class 14) took silver and there were bronze medals for Joshua Stacey and Bly Twomey (mixed class 17) and Megan Shackleton with her Czech partner Petr Svatos (mixed class 7).
Earlier, Shilton and Karabardak progressed to the quarter-finals as winners of group 2 after 3-0 wins against Filip Prchlik and Jan Malec from Czechia and Aleksej Radukic and Nemanja Majkic from Serbia. They beat Russian Seyed Hosseinipour, competing here as an individual neutral athlete, and Ibrahim Hamadtou from Egypt 3-0 and then beat Fredrik Skjold Hinze and Krizander Magnussen from Norway 3-0 in the semi-final.
At 1-1, Shilton and Karabardak edged a tight third set 14-12 and it proved decisive as they went on to take the fourth 11-4 for a 3-1 win.
“I’m happy to win gold with Paul and I think we played some really good doubles,” said Shilton. “It is never nice to play against your teammates and I thought it was a very high-level match. Will and Martin are a very good pair and credit to them they played a really good match, but I think Paul and I were at our best level in the final and played some really good stuff, so I’m really pleased.”
“I thought the final was a fantastic match,” said Karabardak.
“We managed to take the third set 14-12 after some really big rallies and I think that was crucial and gave us the platform to go on and win. Billy and I played really well, and this will give us good momentum going into Paris.”
