Amid the adrenalised delirium of her second European title in three days, Amy Hunt walked to the nearest TV camera, held up her hands and, in homage to Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator screamed: “Are you not entertained?”
It quickly transpired that the 24-year-old Cambridge graduate had been quite the warrior off the track too. Because, as she revealed after collecting a 200m gold medal to go alongside Monday’s 100m title, she has been nearly fainting this year when running over the longer distance.
“I have had a lot of health things going on this year – some really, really low pressure,” Hunt explained. “The 200s have been really scary. I have been nearly fainting after a lot of my 200s this year. I had just to go into that one and get on the bend and be really brave.”
Hunt had entered the 200m final as the overwhelming favourite, but she had to work to chase down the reigning champion, Dina Asher-Smith, one lane outside her, around the bend.
Having done that, the raucous 20,000 crowd at the Alexander Stadium expected to see a coronation. Instead it turned into a struggle, and Hunt only just had enough in the tank to cross the line in 22.19sec, ahead of Ireland’s fast-finishing Rhasidat Adeleke, who ran 22.28. Britain’s Asher-Smith, the defending champion, took bronze a further 0.01 further back.
It means that Hunt’s dream of winning an historic quadruple of gold medals at these European championships is alive – as she made clear afterwards by holding two fingers up in her right hand, before flipping the hand to show four fingers.
“Two out of four,” she said. “Honestly, I think the 100 is the hardest mentally. And the 200 is the hardest physically.
“I was thinking about my coach,” he said before I went in, ‘just imagine me in lane 10 with a stopwatch and a whistle. Just keep those thighs up, girl’.
“But there’s no celebrating, no champagne until Sunday night because I have a debt to the ladies,” Hunt explained, as she set her sights on the 4x100m and mixed relays over the weekend. “We have to make sure we come here and make sure we show them who is the best sprint nation in Europe.
After 92 years, Ireland finally has a male European championship gold medallist. And his name is English – Mark English. The 33-year-old doctor from Donegal, produced a surgical performance to take gold, tracking and then overtaking Croatian Marino Bloudek in the home straight to win in 1:45.26.
“Just relief,” said English. “I have been trying for a lifetime to get a title. I had planned to go to Sierra Nevada at 6am tomorrow, so I’m going to have to try to rebook that flight. These moments don’t come around often. I have a life that’s never come around for me before, so I’ll have to try to celebrate it somehow.”
Bloudek clung on to take silver with Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui winning bronze. As the huge Irish contingent celebrated, the heart also went out to Britain’s Max Burgin, who was forced to pull out minutes before the race after suffering an injury in the warmup.
It caps a summer of woe for Burgin, who also picked up a virus at the Commonwealth Games and didn’t make it out of the semi-finals.
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There was also no medal for another British contender, Elise Thorner, in the 3,000m steeplechase. The 24-year-old had entered the race as the fastest European over the distance in 2026 but she could only finish fifth behind Germany’s Gesa Felicitas Krause.
The race was also notable for a faceplant by another German, Lea Meyer, into the water jump while running in the medal positions. While Meyer got up, she could only finish fourth.
“It was gutting to see Lea actually fall, because I know her quite well,” said Thorner. “She is an amazing athlete. Shocking to see and trying to get over was a bit mad. But I was pretty spent with 200m so I was hanging on anyway.”
Further success Germany as Leo Neugebauer hung on to win the men’s decathlon from his compatriot Niklas Kaul after collapsing over the line. His score of 8,611 points proved enough by 38 points, even though the 6ft 7in Neugebauer looked to be wading through treacle over the last 50 metres before collapsing over the line.
But the event was marred by extraordinary scenes earlier on day two in the pole vault, after officials forgot to raise the bar from 4.70m to 4.80m. As a result athletes were under the impression that they were attempting 4.80m, while the bar was in fact still at 4.70m.
A European Athletics statement said that the “results of this additional 4.70m round were cancelled, and the competition was resumed at 4.80m, with all athletes given the opportunity to attempt the height.”