<\/p>\n
Georgia Hunter Bell\u2019s glorious summer continues to take her to fresh summits. The 32-year-old was simply sublime as she demolished a decent European 1500m field to add another title to her swelling collection.<\/p>\n
It proved to be the final gold British medal of these championships, as Britain agonisingly missed out on coming top of the medal table to Italy by the slimmest margins.<\/p>\n First Jazmin Sawyers failed to win long jump gold by a centimetre to Larissa Iapichino of Italy. Then, in the final race of the championships, Italy\u2019s Lorenzo Benati held off Britain\u2019s Charlie Dobson by 0.03sec in the men\u2019s 4x400m relay.<\/p>\n It meant that Italy finished top with 10 gold medals, one ahead of the British team, but it still marked an excellent effort on a thrilling final day.<\/p>\n Hunter Bell led from the front. As expected, the women\u2019s 1500m turned into a slow and tactical race. But in the last lap burn up, Hunter Bell truly ignited. Her 58.44sec final 400m took her 10 metres clear as she crossed the line in 4:07.78.<\/p>\n No wonder when she crossed the line she applauded herself for a job well done.<\/p>\n \u201cThat last 150m is always my favourite part of the race, and it was really nice to come down the home stretch and know that I had it,\u201d said Hunter Bell, who finished a second clear of Poland\u2019s Klaudia Kazimierska, with Portugal\u2019s Patricia Silva taking a surprise bronze.<\/p>\n Over the past five months, Hunter Bell has won world indoor 1500m gold<\/a>, 800m Commonwealth Games gold<\/a>, and the European title. She now believes she can add a fourth to her collection at the Ultimate Championships in Budapest next month.<\/p>\n Soon afterwards Sawyers jumped an outdoor long jump personal best of 6.99m to win silver against a high-quality field. It was all the more impressive given that she sustained a serious achilles injury 18 months ago. But she fell tantalising short of Iapichino, who jumped seven metres. France\u2019s Hilary Kpatcha finished with a leap of 6.98m.<\/p>\n Two more silvers for Britain quickly followed in the women\u2019s and men\u2019s 4x400m as Britain finished with 19 medals.<\/p>\n As seven days of action in Birmingham came to an end with Mondo Duplantis taking pole vault gold in 6.15m, Jack Buckner, the chief executive of UK Athletics<\/a>, hailed the European Championships as a huge success.<\/p>\n