Day two of the European Championships in Helsinki and the decathletes were the ones to enter the stadium first to resume their competition.
Yesterday Britain’s Ashley Bryant performed a solid first day of the decathlon, but it was a long day including a heavy downpour during the high jump and strong winds during the 400m, leaving him with 3,901points after the first day of competing.
Today the 21-year old battled on with especially the javelin result of 66.71m making him stand out of the whole field with only the gold medallist (8558) Pascal Behrenbruch of Germany throwing further than the Brit. With his great javelin result he was vaulted from 17th into 11th position with only the 1500m to go. In the end it is a great 12th position with another new PB of 7668points for the British decathlete.
The controversial 400m hurdles continued in today’s morning session with good news for the British team. Both runners, Rhys Williams and Nathan Woodward progressed to tomorrow’s final (20.55 GMT). Williams performed his customary strong finish to automatically qualify by winning his semi in 49.63sec while Woodward had to fear for a second until being announced fastest loser with 49.68sec. In the women’s 400m hurdles Meghan Beesley’s 57.32sec was not enough to take her into the final.
In the 400m semi-final Lee McConnell ran a season’s best of 51.98sec taking her straight through to the final with the third fastest time (final tomorrow 20.25 GMT). Being reinstated after having been disqualified at first, Richard Buck, proved that he was worthy of his semi-final spot, coming second in his race and automatically qualifying for the final tomorrow (19.25 GMT).
Other semi-final races were the men’s 800m, with high expectations resting on Gareth Warburton after yesterday’s superb heat. Leading his heat for 700m the Welsh runner faded on the last metres, finishing last in 1:47.37, serving as a great pacemaker for the rest of his opponents. Fellow Brit Mukhtar Mohammed (1:48.84) also failed to make the final, after Andreas Bube of Denmark flew past him into second position on the last 20m.
Mo Farah’s gold victory in the 5,000m yesterday meant hopes were lying on Julia Bleasdale and Helen Clitheroe in the women’s race today. Until 4,950m it looked more than promising for Bleasdale to win a medal, however, she faded and had to settle for fourth place, still leaving her with a big PB of 15:12.77 and the Olympic A standard. Clitheroe finished 16th in a season’s best of 15:49.13.
After yesterday’s track issue another controversy happened in the women’s pole vault qualification, seeing the athletes boycotting to jump over the automatic qualification height of 4.45m. After 4.40m the finalists were already determined in the process of elimination. Walking through or throwing down the bar deliberately without jumping were popular methods after the officials insisted on them continuing to jump instead of saving their energy for the final. Unaffected by this was Britain’s Sally Peake as her 4.15m were insufficient, while other top jumpers clearly enjoyed teasing the officials.
Lynsey Sharp and Jemma Simpson both ran good tactical races progressing to the 800m final tomorrow (19.45 GMT). Sharp qualified straight as second of her semi-final in 2:01.88, while Simpson’s third position with 2:01.64 secured her a fastest loser spot. Jenny Meadows had to pull out due to an aggravation of her achilles injury after the flight over to Finland.
Highly anticipated as always were the women’s and men’s 100m finals. While the women’s race saw no British athlete competing when Ivet Lalova of Bulgaria took home the gold medal in 11.28sec, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey was the last Brit standing in the men’s 100m. After two false starts including one controversial yellow card for Rytis Sakalauskas, the disqualification of Simone Collio and Ronalds Arajs abandoning due to injury only five sprinters made it into the finish. In the end the odds-on favourite Christophe Lemaître brings gold to France in 10.08sec ahead of fellow countryman Jimmy Vicaut with a season’s best of 10.12sec. Harry AA has to settle for fourth in 10.31sec.
Tomorrow will be several finals including British athletes such as Richard Buck, Lee McConnell, Robbie Grabarz, Samson Oni, Nathan Woodward, Rhys Williams, Jemma Simpson, Lynsey Sharp and more qualifications including the 200m of course. No medals for Britain today, but there are three more days of competition to come.
