GREAT BRITAIN’S athletes battled through monsoon conditions to finish in third place at the European Team Championships at Gateshead International Stadium.
Victories on the second day of competition from Tiffany Porter in the 100 metres hurdles and the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay quartets ensured the hosts retained their overnight position, ending the weekend on 338 points, 9.5pts behind Germany and 16.5 behind winners Russia.
The hosts had at one point been in with a shout of winning the event – the first major athletics championships on home soil since London 2012 – for the first time in its current guise, only for their late charge to fade.
It was Britain’s best points total in the four editions of the new format of the competition, but they still missed out on departing head coach Peter Eriksson’s target of a top-two place.
None of Sunday’s winners performed with quite the panache as Mo Farah showed the previous day with his blistering last lap to win the 5,000m on a solid rather than spectacular final day.
But some of the younger members of the team coped with torrential rain so fierce at times it disrupted the TV coverage and forced the men’s pole vault and women’s high jump to be held indoors to steadily accumulate points.
