Report - GB women win European bronze

The Great Britain women's wheelchair basketball team beat France 53-41 to win bronze at the European Championships at Stoke Mandeville.

GB recovered well from a heavy defeat to tournament winners Germany in Saturday's semi-final.

GB led 29-26 at the break but although France regained the lead early in the second half, they committed too many fouls and the home side capitalised.

Caroline Maclean top scored with 16 points while Caroline Matthews hit 11.

Both sides made a nervous start to the game with France leading 15-14 after the first quarter and although the influential Angelique Pichon kept France in the game, GB made the most of some errors by the French to lead at the break.

France made a strong start to the second half and went five points ahead (34-29) but scores from Matthews, Maclean and Helen Freeman got GB back into contention.

They held a three-point lead going into the final quarter and never looked like losing that advantage

One of five teenagers in the GB squad, Freeman finished as her side's top scorer and said the tournament was vitally important to their development ahead of 2012.

"It feels really good to have won the bronze medal but we were disappointed not to be in the final," she admitted.

"We believe we are good enough and although we have automatically qualified for next year's World Championships in Birmingham, it would have been nice to prove we deserved it.

"But we are pleased to have won because we knew France would be tough. Our defensive press wasn't working early on but in the final quarter it started to work and we played well."

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