Piers and Hannah Boden are world champions!

The Huddersfield siblings teamed up to win the Under 21 Mixed Doubles at the Racketlon World Teams and Doubles Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.

That gold was not the only medal they won at the event (racketlon is a combination sport where competitors play a sequence of table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis).

They won a silver in the Under 21 team event for Great Britain and Honley High student Hannah won a further silver in the Under 21 Ladies Doubles.

Piers then took bronze in the Under 21 Men’s Doubles with his partner.

And all this after a nightmare 32-hour journey for them and arriving just 30 minutes before their first match!

The Bodens joined up with Alistair Prades of Devon and Leon Griffiths from Surrey to represent GB, and they lost out to reigning champions Austria by just two points (107-105) overall.

However, this is the last time half of this Austrian team will be eligible for the Under 21 category as they are all older than the GB team, some by up to five years. Hannah and Leon Griffiths are 16, while two of the Austrians are 21.

In the Mixed, the Bodens beat a team from the Czech Republic and Denmark, with a Finnish pair in third.

This was a great result for the brother and sister as they had a difficult draw due to not being seeded (as they haven’t competed as a pair in an international event before).

Partnering Piers in the Men’s section was GB teammate Griffiths, while Hannah’s partner in the Ladies was tennis specialist Zuzana Severinova from the Czech Republic.

Overall, GB headed the medals table ahead of Denmark and Austria

On the horrendous journey, Piers explained: “We missed the flight from Luton Airport on the journey out due to very heavy traffic on the M1 and due to us having a minor accident (not related!).

Piers and Hannah Boden at the Racketlon World Teams and Doubles Championships 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark The first picture is with the other 2 members of the GB U21 team (Alistair Prades, Devon and Leon Griffiths, Surrey) where they collected a silver medal for GB. Photo:Peter Loong

“We were thus four minutes late to the check-in desk, but they refused to allow us to travel and this started a mammoth journey via a flight to East Berlin (the only one to Northern Europe that day), a coach trip, and then an overnight railway journey through Germany into Denmark.

“This railway journey involved five changes and six trains so we had no sleep.

“We then travelled by taxi and, finally, hire car to the venue and arrived exhausted and sleep-deprived – but the adrenaline kept us going and it was all worth it in the end.”