This is Stuart Weir’s feature on Days 1 and 2 of the European Athletics team championships, Division 1, featuring the teams of sixteen nations. Stuart Weir is our senior writer for Europe. We duplicated this piece for Sunday, to put the Intro prior to days 1 and 2, to give some context.
European Team Championships Days 1 and 2
At the end of the first full day of the European Team Championships, Netherlands lead. The format is simple one athlete in each event from 16 countries with one point to the team for every athlete defeated – plus one point for finishing! Thus the winner gets 16 points and last place one point. In all but the distance races there are two heats with positions allocated on time.
The leading points at the end of Friday – more or less 1/3 of the competition gone – were
1 Netherlands 165.5
2 Spain 134
3 Italy 133
4 Poland 131.5
5 France 126
6 Great Britain 123
7 Germany 120
8 Sweden 115.5
Success in the competition requires not only having good athletes but persuading them to compete in a competition in which athletes are not paid. Netherlands does this better than most and have produced a strong team; in contrast only about 1/4 of the British team would be the first choice. I remember once asking our head coach if he felt frustrated to know that with the top British athletes competing, the team could have won the competition. His philosophical answer was that the competition was good for giving younger athletes a chance to compete on an international stage.
Netherlands are deservedly leading with four victories
Femke Bol, 400m, in 49.48
Jessica Schilder, shot, 20.14
Menno Vloon, pole-vault 5.80m
Jorinde van Klinken, discus 64.61m
Other notable victories were Mohamed Attaoui, for the host nation, in the 800 in 1:44.01 and Nadia Battocletti winning the 5k in 15:56.01.
Team GB had two winners – Samuel Reardon (44.60) a PR in the 400m and Eugene Amo-Dadzie – the fastest accountant in the world, in the 100m in 10.07. Amo-Dadzie said of his performance: “I am very, very happy and always an honour and a blessing to pull on a GB vest, I am really happy – team champs so happy to do my part for the team. Always thankful and blessed to come away healthy as well. I am looking forward to helping the relay team tomorrow to get maximum points and I am feeling good”.
Sam Reardon was delighted with his race: “I knew a championship record could go as it was such a good field and the weather was perfect. It is really hot and no wind. The stadium and the track are unbelievable, so I thought I could be competitive, try and go for the win and get a good time, but to go 44.6 which is world championship qualifying time, a championship record and a PB, the list goes on – it is just so, so amazing”.
To watch the team in Madrid you can catch it on the live stream, including event highlights, which will all be available on the European Athletics website and Eurovision Sport.
Live results will be available on the European Athletics website: https://www.european-athletics.com.
