McColgan storms to silver at European Championships

Athletics 15 Aug 22

Eilish McColgan continued her summer to remember by getting Great Britain’s athletics medal haul up and running with 10,000m silver at the European Championships in Munich.

The 31-year-old, who claimed a thrilling gold over the same distance representing Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, made a successful return to British colours in clocking 30:41.05 at the stadium which hosted the 1972 Olympics.

McColgan set the pace but a staggering surge from Turkey’s Yasemin Can with seven laps to go saw her record a 67-second lap and establish a gap which proved too big to make up.

The Scot continued to battle hard and held on for her second European silver, the first of which came in the 5,000m in Berlin four years ago.

“I’m pleased but disappointed," she said. "I would have loved to become European champion tonight but I definitely felt tired legs.

"The Commonwealths was one of the craziest weeks of my life, such a big high of emotions and not a lot of sleep, and I found it tough to get myself up again today. I can’t complain with a silver medal, I'm more than proud.

"I’ve had a lot of races, she [Can] didn’t do Commonwealths or Worlds, so that was in my legs. I wanted to hang on and get a medal. She’s an incredible athlete, one of the best in the world. I did my best but she was too good tonight.”

McColgan will now mull over whether to take on the 5,000m on Thursday evening.

Shot put landmark and marathons take place

Elsewhere on the opening day of athletics in Munich, Britain had competitors in both the men’s and women’s shot put finals for the first time in more than half a century.

Scott Lincoln finished 10th with a 19.90m throw in the men’s showpiece while Sophie McKinna was 12th with a best of 16.29m in the women’s competition.

A whole host of British athletes ensured they too will battle for medals by successfully navigating heats and semi-finals on Monday.

Neil Gourley, Matthew Stonier and Jake Heyward made it through to the men’s 1500m final while a season’s best 51.60s from Laviai Nielsen saw her advance into the women’s 400m semi-finals.

Joining Nielsen in recording a season’s best was Jacob Fincham-Dukes, whose 7.86m leap proved comfortably enough to see him join compatriot Reynold Banigo in Tuesday night’s men’s long jump final. Ben Williams qualified fourth for Wednesday’s men’s triple jump final.

Sophie Cook equalled her 4.50m personal best to make it to the women’s pole vault final, where she will compete against Molly Caudery on Wednesday evening.

Britain’s women finished sixth in the marathon, Alice Wright the pick of the quartet by finishing 22nd in 2:35:33, while Philip Sesemann clocked 2:15:17 to finish 17th in the men’s race to help the British squad to seventh.

Five medals for Freya

In the pool, team events took centre stage and trademark flying anchor leg from Freya Anderson saw the British quartet claim mixed 4x100m freestyle silver in Rome.

Anderson saw home a strong quartet also including Tom Dean, Matthew Richards and Anna Hopkin in a tight and tense last 50m, overtaking swimmers from Sweden and Italy to claim her fifth medal of the week.

Britain came into the event as defending champions and cemented their place on the podium in Rome, just one tenth of a second ahead of Sweden in third.

Dean said: "It's such a good laugh doing the mixed relays, you never know what's going to happen.

“People change up the order last minute from other countries, it's unpredictable, it's fun - and Freya's finish was nuts."

Bronze for divers on opening day

Earlier in the day, Britain earned a bronze in the mixed team event during the opening day of diving at the European Aquatics Championships.

Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix, James Heatly, Grace Reid and Noah Williams joined forces to finish with a score of 384.70, enough to occupy the final step on the podium behind champions Italy and silver medallists Ukraine.

The competition was comprised of six dives, one from all six groups of competition, with Williams and Spendolini-Sirieix – who teamed up to win mixed synchronised 10m platform gold representing England at the Commonwealth Games last week - sealing the deal with a nerveless dive in the same discipline.

Spendolini-Sirieix said: “I’m really happy to have started the competition with the team event with amazing people.

“I’m really proud of how we did to produce solid diving, which is promising. I’m really excited to see what we can do this week.”

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