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Gordon Benson hails "great" Baku 2015 gold-medal success

Team GB's first gold medal winner at the 2015 European Games, Gordon Benson, admits that claiming victory in the men's triathlon was beyond his wildest expectations.

Gordon Benson has admitted that he surprised even himself by claiming Great Britain's first gold medal at the inaugural European Games this morning.

The 21-year-old came out on top in the men's triathlon event, edging out Portugal's Joao Silva to get Team GB off the mark.

Benson recently finished 15th at the World Series in Japan, but with the aid of teammates Thomas Bishop and Philip Graves it was a piece of history in Baku for the young triathlete.

"It's great being a part of a winning team and taking the gold home," he is quoted as saying by BT Sport. "They put me in front and I tried to control the run from the start and I led for almost the entire 10k.

"You could have written 10 names who had a chance of winning that race and I wouldn't have put myself among them. But I knew if everything went right I had a chance to win Team GB that gold medal."

The result means that Benson automatically qualifies for next year's Rio Olympics.

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Team GB triathlete Gordon Benson exits the water on his way to winning gold at the European Games on June 14, 2015
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