Britain hit the front in European Team Athletics Championships

Athletics 29 May 21

Great Britain & Northern Ireland sit top of the standings after an excellent first day of competition at the European Team Athletics Championships in Silesia, Poland.

Four victories, four runners-up spots and three third-place finishes earned 95 points for the British team, putting them 0.5 points ahead of the host nation and 1.5 clear of Germany to set up a thrilling conclusion on Sunday.

Seven countries are competing across the weekend, with points awarded on a sliding scale from seven (for victors) down to one.

Lina Nielsen claimed Britain's first seven-point haul of the day in the women's 400m hurdles, coming home in 55.59s, and afterwards paid tribute to the togetherness of the squad.

"It feels really good," she said. "It's nice to start the momentum going as we have high expectations this weekend.

"We have new people on the team and we are all supporting each other, there's a nice family feel going on.

"The team captain, Jake Wightman, gave us a really nice spirit-lifting speech and from that moment, we were all raring to go.

"I've got the 4x400m relay to come tomorrow so now I'll get my legs ready for that."

Ellie Baker followed suit in the women's 800m, giving herself an early birthday present by easing to victory in 2:00.95, just six-tenths of a second off her personal best.

Baker, who turns 23 on Thursday, said: "I wanted to do the team proud today and I feel like I've done that, so I'm happy.

"I wanted to get in a good position, regardless of whether it was a slow or fast race, and attack when the time was right. I was happy with the position I was in throughout and I thought I'd bring it home a little earlier.

"I'm running very consistently at the moment. I only ran two days ago in Manchester so I was a bit heavy-legged today but I'm really happy to come away with the win.

"To perform on this stage for Great Britain means the world to me and it has been a childhood dream of mine."

A personal best time of 9:13.36 proved enough for Revée Walcott-Nolan to claim victory in the women's 3000m and Britain were also first home in the penultimate race of the day as

Beth Dobbin, Imani-Lara Lansiquot, Bianca Williams and Desiree Henry won the women's 4x100m relay in 43.36s.

Brothers Cameron and Alastair Chalmers both earned silver on a memorable day for the Guernsey siblings, who both put in fine displays.

Alastair was first up in the 400m hurdles and put in a season's best performance, crossing the line in 49.95s, before Cameron did likewise with a 45.89s time in the 400m to match his younger brother's six-point tally.

Will Grimsey cleared 4.24 in the men's high jump to take second spot behind Poland's Norbert Kobielski and Naomi Ogbeta finished runner-up in the women's triple jump on 14.01m.

Valuable third-placed finishes were secured by Kirsty Law (discus) and Scott Lincoln (shot put), who threw 58.13m and 20.00m respectively, while Lanquiot warmed up for her relay success with third in the women's 100m.

A photo finish was needed to separate Lanquiot and Lisa Mayer after both finished in 11.27s, with the German athlete taking second by seven-hundredths of a second.

Sunday's action begins at noon and is live on the BBC Red Button, BBC Sport website and BBC iPlayer.

Sportsbeat 2021

Tags