Golden girl Amy Hunt bags second win of European Championships in Birmingham
Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke took silver in a national record 22.28s, and Asher-Smith rounded out the podium in 22.29s
Amy Hunt is halfway to achieving her target of four golds at a single European championships after beating Dina Asher-Smith to win the women’s 200 metres final in Birmingham.
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Asher-Smith, who took bronze, got out to the faster start but Hunt – who is known for the back end of her race – was neck-and-neck with her fellow Briton after the bend then pulled ahead, crossing the line in 22.19 seconds.
Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke took silver in a national record 22.28s, and Asher-Smith rounded out the podium in 22.29s.
Success Eduan, the third Briton in the final, who beat Hunt on the same track at the British Championships in June, was sixth in 22.66s.
“Two out of four, baby!” Hunt said on the BBC. “Honestly, the 100m is the hardest mentally and the 200 is the hardest physically.
“I’ve had a lot of health things going on this year, some really, really low blood pressure, and it’s meant the 200s have been really scary.
“I’ve been nearly fainting after a lot of my 200s this year, so I just had to go into that one and get on the bend and be really brave, but it was an amazing race.”
The addition of a mixed 4×100 relay opened the possibility for Hunt to gun for a European quadruple in Birmingham, unprecedented for a British athlete.
The Cambridge English literature graduate, who stormed back on to the scene with world silver last year, has now done all she can on an individual basis to make that happen on home soil, and also plans to participate in the 4×100 women’s relay.
It was the fourth successive evening of British gold in Birmingham, a championships that has been hit hard by criticism over sparse crowds.
But on Thursday the Alexander Stadium, which seats approximately 23,000 people, attracted 20,082 spectators to watch Hunt win her second major senior title three days after storming to her first.
It was by far the best-attended session of the championships so far, even despite a 90-minute shutdown to the M6 northbound near Birmingham caused by thick smoke from one of the fires raging across the West Midlands.
Even after it re-opened, just before 7:00pm, with reduced speeds in place in both directions, the closure resulted in 150-minute delays and six miles of congestion, and a traffic incident pushing back start times due to the late arrival of athletes.
Earlier, Mark English became the first Irishman to win 800m gold at the European Athletics Championships after he claimed the title with a perfectly timed run to come home in one minute 45.26 seconds.
The final proved too fast for Ben Pattison, who came home in sixth, and there was bad news for Max Burgin, who was forced to pull out of the race due to an injury in the warm-up.
British record-holder Zharnel Hughes won his 200m semi-final in 20.05 seconds to qualify for Friday’s medal race while Ebuka Nwokeji, who had qualified from the morning heats, did not advance.
Elise Thorner finished fifth in a women’s 3,000m steeplechase won by Germany’s Gesa Felicitas Krause.