Ukraine guaranteed a historic medal at the European Badminton Championship: how it happened

Audio version Audio version of the material x1 0:00 / 0:00 Generated using AI x1 0:00 / 0:00

Ukrainian women's pair Polina Bugrova and Yevheniya Kantemir reached the semifinals of the European Badminton Championship, which is underway in Huelva, Spain. Reaching this stage automatically ensures the athletes an award, which will be the first in the history of Ukrainian badminton at the adult level.

The 2026 European Championships will be held in Huelva, Spain, from April 6 to 12. This will be Bugrova and Kantemir's second European Championship together – last year they came up short of a medal, losing in the quarterfinals to the French pair of Margot Lambert and Camille Ponnant.

In the quarterfinals of the 2026 tournament, the Ukrainians met with England's Abigail Harris and Lizzie Tolman, who were seeded seventh in the tournament. However, the Ukrainian duo was seeded third before the start of the Euro.

The Ukrainian duo managed to defeat the English team in two games. The first game ended with a narrow victory for the Ukrainians with a score of 21:19. However, in the second game, Bugrova and Kantemir triumphed with a difference of four points.

Badminton Euro 2026. Women's tournament, doubles, quarter-finals

Polina Bugrova/Evgenia Kantemir (3) — Abigail Harris/Lizzie Tolman (7) — 21:19, 21:17

Bugrova and Kantemir will face top seeds Gabriela and Stefani Stoyeva in the semifinals. The Bulgarian duo is a four-time winner of the European Championships and has appeared in the finals of these competitions six times.

Bugrova and Kantemir: what you need to know

• So far, Ukraine has won only one medal at the European championship level — it became the bronze medalist of the team Euro in 2025. Both Bugrova and Kantemir were part of that team.
• Ukrainian athletes already have a number of joint achievements on the international stage: victories at tournaments in Mexico (2024) and Astana (2025), as well as three silver medals at International series competitions. Separately, Bugrova in 2020 became the bronze medalist of the European Junior Championship paired with Maria Stolyarenko.
• Bugrova also continues to fight in the singles: seeded 6th. On Thursday, April 9, she will play a 1/8 final match against Özge Bayrak from Turkey. Instead, Kantemir ended her singles performance at the 1/8 final stage. losing to the fourth seed, Turkish badminton player Neslihan Arin.