The British Athletics team came away with a Gold and Silver medal on Day 2 of the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Göteborg, Sweden.
There were high medal hopes for the Saturday afternoon session, with eyes in-field.
Pole Vault (W) – Holly Bleasdale found herself in a championship jump off, after having to pass after a failure at 4.62m and opting to go straight to 4.67.
She scrambled over the bar at that height and, along with Poland’s Anna Rogowska both failed at 4.72.
In a jump off situation, the bar comes down until someone fails, and both failed again at 4.72m
Rogowska brought the bar down at 4.67, but Bleasdale handled the 5cm drop better, to claim the first British medal at this championships.
After a disappointing few minutes in-field, Britain got off the mark with a Gold.
Long Jump (W) – Shara Proctor had qualified on Friday with a single jump, and for most of the competition had been sat in the Bronze medal position (best of 6.69m).
But on her final jump, Sweden’s Erica Jarder cleared 6.71m, just taking the Bronze in front of a home crowd.
High Jump (M) There was further disappointment in-field, as Robbie Grabarz failed to clear 2.27m, finishing in sixth place, admitting that perhaps he had put too much pressure on himself.
1500m (W) 19-year-old Laura Muir had run a PB to get herself into her first final, and found herself in the lead, after the pack effectively left Sweden’s Abeba Aregawi to stride away for an unassailable lead.
Much to the annoyance of the commentators, who would have preferred to see a closer race throughout, as the pack approached the final bell, Muir found herself paying a price for trying to take up the pace, finishing 8th.
60m (M) After the disappointment of Dwain Chambers crashing out in the earlier round on Friday, it was left to the new guard of Harry Aikines-Aryeetey and James Dasaolu to impress.
Dasaolu running a blistering semi-final to put himself on the UK all-time best list with a time of 6.52s
There was a silver for his efforts, as Dasaolu got the same time as the eventual champion Jimmy Vicaut (France) but Vicaut had the momentum with the lean to snatch the Gold.
Sunday’s Programme
Looking ahead to Sunday’s program, the British team has no shortage of opportunities:
| Triple Jump (W) | Yamilé Aldama |
| 400m (W) | Perri Shakes-Drayton, Eilidh Child, Shana Cox |
| 800m (M) | Mukhtar Mohammed |
| 800m (W) | Jenny Meadows |
| 400m (M) | Michael Bingham, Richard Strachan, Nigel Levine |
| 3000m (W) | Lauren Howarth |
| Pole Vault (M) | Steven Lewis |
| 60m Semi Final 2 (W) | Asha Philip |
| Long Jump (M) | Chris Tomlinson |
| 4x400m Relays (M & W) |