Roll of Honour 2

A year ago, I wrote this blog in which I trumpeted the achievements of the British Athletics team at the World Championships in Berlin. Yesterday in Barcelona, this years European Championships came to an end.

The target for the team was 15 medals; the result was 19 (6 gold, 7 silver and 6 bronze) and a third place position behind Russia and France.

My congratulations go to the whole team for their efforts and to all our medalists and those that set personal bests. Here's a gallery of our Gold Medalists:

Mo Farah - 5,000m and 10,000m

Jessica Ennis - Heptathelon

Phillips Idowu - Triple Jump

Dai Greene - 400m Hurdles

Andy Turner - 110m Hurdles

Roll on the Commonwealth Games, 2011 World Championships, 2012 European Championships... oh, and the small matter of the London Olympics in 2012...

Andrew

Roll of Honour

A year ago, the British Athletics team returned from the Olympics with its tail between its legs. Our athletes contributed just 1 gold and 3 other medals to our haul - a performance that was seen as lacklustre, falling short of a target of five medals and paling next to stunning Cycling, Rowing and Swimming performances.

Last weekend the World Athletics Championships in Berlin came to an end. At the beginning of the week a certain amount of cynicism about our prospects would have been understandable. Our target was 5 medals again, but how would we fair in the real world? Well, the answer was surprisingly well - a six medal haul (2 each of Gold, Silver and Bronze) - was our best result in 10 years...

As always, there were highs and lows - some disappointments and some unexpected (at least for the casual follower) successes. I've already made mention in this column of Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu in this column - but I make no apologies for mentioning them again!

After missing the Beijing games, Jessica Ennis became the latest in a distinguished line of British Multi-Eventers - Mary Peters, Daley Thompson, Denise Lewis, Dean Macey, Kelly Sotherton - to reach the top of her sport, and the first to win the World Championship Heptathlon Gold for Britain.

Phillips Idowu's career began in the shade of the World Record holder Jonathan Edwards and last year he got Silver in Beijing. This year he managed a Personal Best and Gold.

Although the ultimate measure of success is the number of medals won, sometimes I feel we do not recognise those athletes who achieve season and lifetime bests in the pursuit of the goal. This is a theme addressed in this blog by the BBC's Tom Fordyce. It's also appropriate in this regard to mention Greg Rutherford who came fifth in the long jump final but had set a new British Record in the qualifying rounds.

Back in the medal table, however, our next medalist was Jenny Meadows who ran a great 800 metres to claim bronze with a personal best and the third fastest time by a British woman ever. Another bronze came courtesy of the Men's 4x100m behind the Caribbean powerhouses of Jamaica (including, of course, Usain Bolt) and Trinidad and Tobago.

Our final medals came on the last day; Lisa Dobriskey gained a silver in the 1500 metres after the second placed athlete was disqualified and our 4 x 400m squad went one better than the sprint relay team and took the second place.

So there you have it - the British Roll of Honour. We may have missed out on medals from Christine Ohuruogu and Paula Radcliffe. There may have been other athletes who under-performed. But the team as a whole produced a sterling effort to beat expectations as they begin the long road to London 2012.

Andrew

Bonus Blog - Bolt does it again.

Although I have already blogged today, I couldn't not mention Usain Bolt's latest achievement. Follow the link to see the full 19.19 seconds it took him to cover 200 metres:

See it here (UK only, I think)

Andrew

P.S. I should make mention of Phillips Idowu's gold in the triple jump and Jenny Meadows' 800 metre bronze. I hope to blog on the Brits' performance overall at the end of the games.