Moments earlier there was also a plucky silver for Great Britain\u2019s mixed 4x400m relay team behind the gold medallists Norway. Britain\u2019s team of Ben Jeffries, Charlotte Henrich, Toby Harries and Yemi Mary John all ran well. But a Norway team spearheaded by the 400m hurdles world record-holder Karsten Warholm and the fastest woman in Europe this year, Henriette J\u00e6ger, were too strong with a championship record of 3:09.62, nearly a second clear of Britain.<\/p>\n
The only disappointment was that more people were not here to witness it given that the Alexander Stadium, which seats around 20,000, looked barely half full.<\/p>\n
However, organisers told the Guardian 13,623 tickets had been sold for the Monday night \u2013 along with 170,000 tickets for the week \u2013 and that from Thursday night onwards the event was pretty much a sellout.<\/p>\nBritain’s Amy Hunt reacts after crossing the finish line to win gold.<\/span> Photograph: Matthias Schr\u00e4der\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBritain\u2019s Max Burgin was deeply puzzled after he bombed out in the Commonwealth Games in the semi\u2011finals 12 days ago \u2013 before realising later in the day that he was in the early stages of a nasty virus. The 24\u2011year\u2011old has barely run since, but he looked much more like his old self on Monday in winning a stacked 800m heat in 1min 45.80sec.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctor said it was a virus so I had to take three or four days off, which I did, and when I got back into running after that I still felt rough so it just sort of dragged on for a bit longer than expected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week I\u2019ve not managed to do too much running at all really and the bits that I have done haven\u2019t inspired much confidence, so I really wasn\u2019t too sure. I went into this heat just thinking I\u2019d approach it a bit more conservatively. Sit off a little bit to start with, run a bit more traditional tactics. But we ended up being a lot faster than the Commonwealth Games heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy with how I ran it. Happy with my kick finish which is always good to know I\u2019ve still got one. I don\u2019t often see it. It was a good run out. I\u2019m looking forward to the semis.\u201d<\/p>\nMax Burgin of Great Britain (second right) on his way to winning one of the 800m heats.<\/span> Photograph: Daniela Porcelli\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBen Pattison also made it through as the fastest non-automatic qualifier, finishing fourth in his heat but advancing with the fifth-fastest time overall in 1:45.40. \u201cI tried to make a big move on the back straight and my legs weren\u2019t really there, and then I kind of got caught up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s Mark English looked the best of the other qualifiers for the semi-finals on Wednesday, but his compatriot Cian McPhillips, who had reached the world 800m finals in Tokyo last year, is out after running far below his level because of a virus.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s Archie Yeo made it through to the men\u2019s long jump final with 7.92m in his last leap. But the medals look to be between the Olympic champion, Miltiadis Tentoglou, of Greece, who qualified third with 8.26m, Italy\u2019s Francesco Inzoli who jumped 8.34m and Serbia\u2019s Luka Boskovic, who was just a centimetre back on 8.33m.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Britain\u2019s Lina Nielsen comfortably won her women\u2019s 400m hurdles heat to breeze into the semi\u2011finals as the second-fastest qualifier in 55.08. \u201cIt felt really good, it felt really chill,\u201d she said. \u201cThe plan was to conserve as much energy as you can whilst setting yourself up for the semis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a fine balance. I just told myself in the home stretch, don\u2019t do too much, just hold everyone off and I actually took a cheeky look at the screen which I\u2019ve never done in my career so that was quite fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether she could challenge for a medal, she said: \u201cAnything can happen in the final. I\u2019m just taking it race by race. I think the semis will be very difficult, so my plan is to recover as best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the other unheralded British stars also made a strong start. Jake Norris sneaked into the men\u2019s hammer throw final on Tuesday by finishing ninth in qualification with a throw of 75.67m \u2013 despite struggling to wake up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am happy with how I performed no matter what happens,\u201d Norris said. \u201cI am not much of a morning person, I struggled with the early wake up. But I am proud of how I have been throwing and training has been going well.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was a reflection of how well training has been going. I was disappointed with my performance at Commonwealths, it felt like I didn\u2019t show my capability. Today I got it back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s Amy Hunt sprinted to women\u2019s 100m glory to take a brilliant gold at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham. The 24-year-old came into the event as favourite, having won world silver over 200m in Tokyo and 100m at the Commonwealth Games a fortnight ago \u2013 and she delivered in emphatic style. Hunt is never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6802],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-257091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athetics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}