Piers bags a silver lining in Italy

Piers Gilliver resumed his silver service in Italy by finishing as a runner-up at the European Wheelchair Fencing Championships.

The 24-year-old won a silver medal in the men’s epee A category at the Paralympic Games in Rio in 2016 and repeated that trick on Thursday in Terni as he made it all the way to the gold medal match but was edged out by Russia’s Maxim Shaburov.

Gilliver sailed through his group stage with minimal fuss, defeating all and sundry as he racked up five wins from five.

Earning a bye through the last-32 stage, the British fencer then defeated Italy’s Matteo Betti 15-10 in the last 16 before thrashing Roman Fedyaev 15-3 in the quarter-finals.

Mikhail Karpov stood in Gilliver’s way in the semi-finals but he triumphed 15-9, however he came up narrowly short in the showdown for gold, with Shaburov taking it 15-13.

Elsewhere, Joshua Waddell bowed out during the group stage in the same event while Gemma Collis-McCann did the same in the women’s sabre A event.

Dimitri Coutya was unable to follow up his superb gold medal he won in the men’s epee B on Wednesday as he went out in the last 16 of the men’s sabre B competition.

Coutya was bested 15-14 by Italian Marco Cima while Shah Rashid also exited at the same stage, losing 15-6 to Greece’s Panagiotis Triantafyllou.