Amber Hill earns Team GB 2024 Olympic quota spot with European skeet shooting gold

Skeet shooter Amber Hill earned Team GB a 2024 Olympic quota spot after winning gold at the European Shotgun Championships in Larnaca. 

The 25-year-old missed just two targets in a tense medal match, which ended in dramatic fashion when Nadine Messerschmidt missed her final shot. 

It was Hill’s eighth career gold as she takes a huge step towards competing at her second Olympic Games after finishing sixth at Rio 2016. 

Hill, who became the youngest ever winner of an ISSF event at just 15, breezed through her ranking match with a perfect record before holding her nerve in the sweltering heat to see off her German opponent. 

Ben Llewellin was also on the medal podium after securing bronze in the men’s skeet event.

Elsewhere on a packed weekend, Nekoda Smythe-Davis made a sensational return to the judo mat by winning gold in just her second competition back.

The 29-year-old stepped back from judo after suffering concussion in 2019, while she has since had a baby, but showed no signs of rust by winning the -57kg event with victory over Croatia’s Tihea Topolovec.

In Munich, Georgia Taylor-Brown was in imperious form in the Super League Triathlon.

The Tokyo Olympic individual silver medallist led from the front to finish, comfortably ahead of fellow Brit Sophie Coldwell to cross the line with a curtsy and Union Jack in hand.

Munich’s race saw athletes compete three sets of triathlon disciplines back-to-back, and Taylor-Brown was pleased going out hard paid off.

She said: “My aim was to go really hard in the first tri and treat it like it was one race. “That would hopefully split the race – and it did. Then just stay focused.

“It felt good, I knew I’d lose time on the swim, but I felt good on the bike today.”

It was top of the podium for fellow Olympic gold medallist Alex Yee, who crossed the line first in the French Grand Prix Final in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, sprinting clear of Jelle Geens and Mario Mola to take gold.

Meanwhile in New York, middle-distance stars Laura Muir and Jake Wightman signed off their season in style with victories in the 5th Avenue Mile in New York.

Olympic 1500m silver medallist Muir recorded a course record time of 4:14.8 ahead of compatriot Jemma Reekie in fourth.

Wightman backed up his stunning summer, where he won World Championship 1500m gold alongside Commonwealth bronze at the same distance and European 800m silver.

The 28-year-old went round in 3:49.6 to clinch his third title and wrap up 2022 in style.