OLYMPIC champion Ed McKeever was among the senior athletes leading Team GB into the inaugural European Games in Azerbaijan tonight.

McKeever was spearheading the British contingent at the multi-sport Games which run until June 28, with boxing champion Nicola Adams, who was carrying the flag at tonight’s ceremony, and tae kwon-do Olympic champion Jade Jones also in the party.

l THERE was a strong performance from Wiltshire paddler at the third of the five annual sprint regattas at the National Watersports Centre, in Nottingham, last weekend.

Wiltshire Youth’s Calum Gingell finished an impressive third in a strong field in the boys B 1000m K1 event.

In final two of the same event it was Spencer Armstrong, from Devizes Canoe Club, who led the field to finish in top spot.

Both boys paired up to race the blue riband 200m event finishing seventh in the boys A/B event, among some of the country’s top young paddlers.

Freddie Brown (Wiltshire Youth CC) and Ed Nightingale (Bradford on Avon CC) made finals in all their events and finished third in the boys C K2 500m.

Nightingale then joined the Royal Leamington paddlers in the boys C K4 where they had a convincing win. Jodie and Flossie Ball also made several finals, finishing a close second in the girls D K2 500m.

Wiltshire athletes: Ed Nightingale (Bradford on Avon), Spencer Armstrong (Devizes), Conor Henley, Calum Gingell, Natalie Day, Milly Webb, Freddie Brown, Jodie Ball, Flossie Ball, Eve Wright (Wiltshire Youth Canoe Club).