Britons were to the fore among the medals decided on the fourth day of the European Championships.
And encouragingly younger athletes were performing like seasoned campaigners.
At 22 Rhys Williams had the confidence to run his own race in the 400m hurdles. At 250m he looked well out of the medal hunt but maintained focus and composure to run himself back into the fray and clocked 49.12sec to seek past France’s Naman Keita and take bronze. Greece’s Periklis Iakovakis took gold in 48.46sec.
In the 800m Becky Lyne ran a great tactical race despite a strapped ankle due to a sore Achilles’ tendon. Up against tough Russian opposition it looked like Lyne’s challenge could be ended when she was give a hefty shove when moving through the gears off the last bend. But the 24-year-old attacked again and while silver and gold were out of reach she took bronze with 1min 58.45sec. Olga Kotlyarova, of Russia, took gold with 1min 57.38sec.
Marlon Devonish repeated his bronze medal of four years ago in the 200m. Francis Obikwelu clocked 20.01sec without looking under pressure to take gold. After scorching from the blocks and overhaulilng local favourite Johan Wissman on the bend Devonish saw Wissman come back to take silver as he had to dig deep to hold on to bronze. Wissman ran 20.38sec with Devonish running 20.54sec. Rikki Fifton had gone out with sixth place in his semi-final in 20.85sec.
Nicola Sanders finished sixth in the 400m final with 50.87sec. Joanne Cuddihy finished in eighth place in 51.46sec. Bulgaria’s Vanya Stambolova won gold in 49.85sec.
Alistair Cragg, Mo Farah and Nick McCormick progressed into the 5K final. Farah looked comfortable in coming in fourth in 13min 46.77sec. McCormick came in last but with few athletes being eliminated in the heats had done enough to move through on time (13min 52.87sec). Cragg eased through in third place with 13min 50.12sec. But in Cragg’s heat Thompson came in with 14min 10.27sec in last place after being at the front with a few laps to go.
Derval O’Rourke eased through the rounds of the sprint hurdles easing through her heat with 13.03sec. Sara McGreavy finished fifth in her heat but 13.30sec was enough for a fastest loser place. Sarah Claxton was third in her heat but went out with 13.39sec and Gemma Bennett was also just one place off automatic qualification in third but her 13.40sec was not enough to progress either.
Roisin McGettigan was one place outside the qualifiers for the steeplechase final with a fifth placed 9min 47.37sec. In the faster second heat Fionnualla Britton lowered her PB to 9:49.20 but failed to qualify. Hattie Dean finished eighth in 9min 52.97sec.
Michael Rimmer he won his 800m heat in style with 1min 47.10sec - the fastest time of the day. Sam Ellis attacked hard on the last lap of his heat and while his legs faded in the home straight his efforts in fourth place proved to be enough as he progressed on time with 1min 47.72sec. Richard Hill took the lead on his heat but was beaten for pace and run out of it and into sixth place with 1min 50.26sec in a tight finish.
Have you got something to say about this story? Make your views known in our forum.
