Bronze medal delight for Twell at European Championships

At the penultimate day of the European Championships in Amsterdam, Steph Twell (handicap -2.0)  took the bronze medal in the women’s 5000m.

One of the gutsiest races of the championships came from Twell who won bronze in the women’s 5000m after a strong all-round performance. The runaway leader, Turkey’s Yasemin Can, could not be caught but Twell along with a group of five or six, battled hard from two-thirds of the race after a slow start. As the pace went up and down, the Scottish athlete maintained her position in third place but accelerated in the final lap, going passed Sweden’s Meraf Bahta at one stage. However, ultimately, she sprinted for the line to confirm third spot in a time of 15:20.70.

The Aldershot, Farnham and District athlete spoke afterwards: “It is fantastic, absolutely unreal. I knew I had to go for any colour of medal and I just had to run right through to the line. It was so nerve-wracking going around; I was just thinking ‘is it going to be silver or bronze’. I wondered if I could stay with (Yasemin) Can, but she dropped the pace so I just held onto my hat and that was the experience coming out.

“You can doubt yourself sometimes and I have done that in the past, but now I have learnt how to cope with doubts, and my inner strength is showing. I wanted this - I have been part of the sport since a young age, so I’m super happy with that.”

There were also fine performances from Laura Whittle (handicap-1.9) and Eilish McColgan (handicap -2.2)) who finished fifth and sixth respectively in times of 15:24.18 and 15:28.53. Whittle ran a well-paced race to reel in the potential medallists, but just missed out on a podium position. McColgan was not too far behind in her first major 5000m final after switching from the 3000m steeplechase.  

In the men’s 1500m final, there was a frantic burn up on the last lap, spearheaded by Britain’s Jake Wightman (handicap -6.5) but in the end, both Brits placed outside the medals. Lee Emanuel (handicap -6.2) came through strongly in the final 100m, posting a time of 3:47.57. Wightman settled for seventh in a time of 3:47.68 despite a brave effort to lead from the front, striking with 300m to go.

Full results from the European Championships can be found here: http://www.european-athletics.org/competitions/european-athletics-championships/2016/schedules-results/

British Athletics medal tally at the 23^rd European Championships:

Gold (3)

Dina Asher-Smith – Women’s 200m

Martyn Rooney – Men’s 400m

Greg Rutherford – Men’s Long Jump

Silver (1)

Jazmin Sawyers – Women’s Long Jump

Bronze (5)

Anyika Onuora – Women’s 400m

Tiffany Porter – Women’s 100m Hurdles

Julian Reid – Men’s Triple Jump

Danny Talbot – Men’s 200m

Steph Twell – Women’s 5000m