The final day looked so bright. Not only did the sun decide to come out for the final events concluding the Championship, but also Britain’s athletes appeared to be ready to collect some more medals.
With British record holder Sophie Hitchon in the hammer throw, two athletes in the 110m hurdles semi-finals, three runners in the women’s 10,000m, a promisingly looking JJ Jegede in the long jump and three out of four British relays in the finals, there was hope for UKA.
In a weakened hammer field, without the World Record holder and the World Leader, Sophie Hitchon stayed about 4m below her best and had to bow out of the competition after three attempts. Annoyingly, the field was very close and so she had to settle for eleventh position with 67.17m in her first international senior competition.
With William Sharman and Gianni Frankis, two athletes who were on form and both reached new season’s bests, unfortunately had to bid goodbye to spots in the final. Sharman’s 13.55sec in his heat and Frankis’ 13.68sec left them in position 11 and 17. Later, the final was won by Russia’s Sergey Shubenkov in 13.16sec, who clocked a new national record of 10.09sec in the semis and took the European lead.
The women’s 4x100m final followed the hurdles, but as we know without any British representation. The disqualification and the resulting non-attendance of a British female 4x100m relay at the London Olympics were still a matter of debate today and should be heated up further later on.
The women’s 10,000m literally were a silver lining in the gloominess of the British relay debacle, with Jo Pavey collecting medal number six for the team. In 31:49.03 the 38-year old celebrated a comeback of her victory at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, winning silver behind an invincible Dulce Félix of Spain (31:44.75). Up-and-coming talent Charlotte Purdue secured position six in 32:28.46 while Gemma Steel came ninth in 32:46.32. Pavey’s silver medal surely will give her a boost for the Olympics, while unfortunately the other two runners missed out on achieving the required A standard.
A gripping final was the men’s long jump competition. Almost facing elimination after two foul jumps, the later to be crowned European Champion Sebastian Bayer did a safety jump of 8.03m to leave him in the competition. Britain’s JJ Jegede was still in a medal position, having jumped 8.10m in his second attempt. Bayer’s fourth attempt of 8.09m still meant bronze for Jegede, but with a leap of 8.33m followed by 8.34m none of JJJ’s attempts could prevent him from being pushed back into fourth place. Greg Rutherford who did not compete in the championship was relieved to still be in the world lead by 1cm, but the Olympics prove to be a close affair. With Jegede only meeting the B standard he can only hope for a place in the Olympic squad now.
Another shocker for the team was the men’s 4xx100m final. Clocking the fastest result in yesterday’s semi-finals, the relay’s baton never got to see the finish line. The first hand over between Christian Malcolm and Dwain Chambers did not work out and the baton hit the ground, with Malcolm bravely taking full responsibility for the failure. James Ellington and Mark Lewis-Francis could do nothing but watch the other relays going past them.
After both sprint relays failed to impress this weekend questions of lottery funding have been raised. However, the more important question to me is the one of how well prepared the athletes were brought into the competition. Other nations’ relay teams are constantly running test races in order to prevent these problems from happening in races where it counts, but there have been several voices speaking up about the lack of relay preparation. On the plus side, there is a saying that if the dress rehearsal goes wrong, the premiere will run smoothly. Unfortunate for the women’s team, there won’t be a premiere.
With only the 4x400m relays to conclude the day there was still hope. The women’s relay changed yesterday’s running order by putting Shana Cox up in first leg, followed by Nicola Sanders, Lee McConnell and yesterday’s strong first leg runner Eilidh Child on the final leg. Running 3:26.20 the team in the end missed out on the bronze medal by a narrow margin after a scramble on the last metres, seeing the Ukraine winning in 3:25.07 ahead of France and the Czech Republic.
So it was all down to Britain’s men to keep the medal hope alive. Especially the Belgians were expected to be a tough challenge having clocked the fastest qualification time and with both Borlée twins running in the final. For Britain, 400m finalist Richard Buck and Robert Tobin were replacing Luke Lennon-Ford and Michael Bingham while Nigel Levine and Conrad Williams stayed in the first two legs. Leading the race pretty much from the start Richard Buck was the one to face the currently fastest man in Europe, Kevin Borlée. In the end the man who already ran a time of 44.56sec this season left Buck, who already ran three races in the past few days, no chance to counter leaving the British boys with 3:01.56 in a great silver position.
With athletes such as Martyn Rooney and Dai Greene being more than likely to run in the 4x400m in London, the dream of a relay medal at the home Olympics lives on.
To take stock of the whole championship in Helsinki you could describe the experience as a rollercoaster ride of emotions for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Three gold medals, three silvers and a bronze mean position six in the medal standings, but with the focus lying on the rapidly approaching Olympics and therefore many British top athletes giving the Euros a miss, there is a lot to look forward to in a few weeks’ time.
Gold: Mo Farah (5,000m), Robbie Grabarz (High Jump), Rhys Williams (400m Hurdles)
Silver: Lynsey Sharp (800m), Jo Pavey (10,000m), Men’s 4x400m (N. Levine, C. Williams, R. Tobin, R. Buck, M. Bingham, L. Lennon-Ford)
Bronze: Daniel Talbot (200m)
