Day 5 at the European Championships in Zurich began with an early start for the women's marathon over a testing, undulating course around the city centre. In good conditions for distance running, a group of three broke clear by half way featuring Daunay of France, the Italian Straneo and Turkey's Abeylegesse.
Over the multi lap course, the Turkish lady was eventually dropped on the hilly section and Augusto of Portugal settled into third, some 100m or so behind the two leaders. On the last lap, 39 year old Daunay made her decisive move to take gold in a championship record of 2:25:14, with both Straneo and Augusto maintaining their positions to the finish, where all three medallists had time to drape themselves in their national colours through the line.
Defending champion Lynsey Sharp had to settle for silver in the women's 800m as the flowing Arzamasova overtook her in the final straight. The winning time was a Euro lead of 1:58.15, with Sharp's front running rewarding her with a pb of 1:58.80 and Scottish record, as Jozwik also set her best time in third to hold off Poistogova.
The women's 5000m race had been billed as a chance for both the 1500m and 10000m winners from earlier this week to do the 'double', but neither Hassan nor Pavey were able to defeat Bahta from Sweden who won in 15:31.39. Hassan drew level with the Swede down the home straight but her exertions of the day before in the shorter distance clearly took their toll as she fell back to second.
Kuijken came through for bronze as she outdipped Korobkina. Pavey had to be content with a distant seventh this time.
Commonwealth 'poster girl', Eilidh Child took expected gold in the women's 400m hurdles for Britain in 54.48 secs, holding off the fast finishers down the home straight. A close finish behind saw Titimets set a pb in taking silver from Davydova.
Rosolova had been tipped for a medal but was squeezed out into fourth.
The men's hammer title went to defending champion Krisztian Pars of Hungary with a world leading throw of 82.69m on his sixth throw, but he was pushed hard by Fajdek of Poland with 82.05m. Pars only took the lead in the third round from Fajdek and seemed to relax with the gold secure with his final effort.
Litvinov of Russia took bronze.
Heavy favourites Lavillenie (men's pole vault) and Perkovic (women's discus) duly obliged to take their third Euro titles in a row with ease. The Frenchman only needed two jumps to take the victory, entering at 5:65m and then clearing 5:80m. He ultimately jumped 5:90m before having three failures at 6:01m. Behind him, Wojciechowski took silver and there was a joint bronze for Kudlicka and Menaldo. Perkovic was equally dominant, having not been beaten by another European for four years she threw a National Record of 71.08m to take the win by over five metres from Robert-Michon. Third place went to Craft of Germany.
Another three time consecutive Euro winner came in the women's triple jump, where Ukraine's Saladukha won by just four cm from Koneva of Russia with 14.73m, with another Russian, Gumenyuk taking the bronze.
Heats for all of the relays were held yesterday, with no real surprises or hand over issues occurring. The women's 4 x 100m sees France as the likely favourites, with GB and Holland challenging for the medals. In the men's equivalent, Germany and GB look likely to contest the gold, with the home nation, Switzerland seeking a potential medal along with France. Britain look clear favourites for the men's 4 x 400m with three men making the individual final, although France were just behind them in the qualifiers. In the women's longer relay Ukraine are the likely winners with France, Russia and Germany all showing good form in qualifying. Much will depend on the rested athletes who come in for the finals.
