England players criticised by Clare Balding for what they did with their medals following Euro 2024 final

Balding was speaking after Team GB’s Adam Peaty won a silver medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The three-time Olympic champion finished as runner-up in the 100m breaststroke final on Sunday evening, finishing just 0.002 seconds behind Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi.

Peaty’s time was marginally slower than his semi-final run, but Martinenghi improved by nearly three tenths in what was an impressive swim.

The Brit therefore received the silver medal, which was a joint award alongside United States star Nic Fink as the pair finished on exactly the same time.

After the race, Peaty gave an emotional interview to BBC Sport in which he expressed his happiness at winning silver due to the physical and mental battles he has had to overcome over the past 12 months just to make it to the Games.

And he and Fink were both clearly anything but disappointed to receive silver on the podium – prompting Balding to compare their reactions to some of England’s Euro 2024 squad.

She said: “I love this because, honestly, after the finals of the Euros when they all take their medals off, I just thought, ‘You got to the final and performed really well. Don’t say this means nothing’.

“And I love the fact that Adam and Nic Fink there are clearly incredibly proud of those silver medals and will hold them up and say, ‘Yes, I won this’.”

In recent years, it has become relatively commonplace for football players to immediately take off their medals after finishing as runners-up in a tournament – as if to indicate that a runners-up spot isn’t enough.

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Though not all the England players removed their medals after losing 2-1 to Spain in the Euro 2024 final, the fact that some players did didn’t sit well with fans on social media.

Team GB, meanwhile, have won two silver medals so far at the Paris 2024 Olympics, with cyclist Anna Henderson finishing as runner-up in the women’s time trial.

The 25-year-old, who has suffered two broken collarbones over the last 12 months, said that she ‘burst into tears’ with delight after finding out she had secured the silver medal behind Australia’s Grace Brown.