Ireland's Roisin McGettigan in Leiria (© Mark Shearman)
After resting over night secure in first place, the victory of Britain in the women’s competition was already expected in the European Cup, 1st League Group B when the event concluded in Magalhães Pessoa Stadium, today.
But nothing was safe in the men’s category as the Ukrainian team managed to overturn Saturday’s results to take an eventual first place after being only fourth at the end of the first day programme.
Four on day two...nine victories in total
The British guaranteed their promotion back into the main European Cup with another four victories on day two (nine in total for the two days). This afternoon, Sarah Claxton beat the Ireland’s Derval O’Rourke right at the finish line of the 100m hurdles (w+ 0.8). Claxton was creditied with 13.02, just 0.10s less than O’Rourke.
Helen Clitheroe also had to give everything she could to secure her 1500m win. The British runner crossed the finish line in 4:07.42, with Sonja Stolic (4:09.17) from Serbia and Montenegro pursing her to the line.
In the field events, Shirley Webb threw the Hammer a distance of 66.29m and beat Ireland’s Eileen O’Keeffe (63.73). Finally, right at the end of the afternoon, the British 4x400m team finished in 3:27.03, with a comfortable, or more accurately a devastating win over Bulgaria, who were a distant second in 3:34.38.
The surprise for the British was the 5000m which ushered in the second appearance of their chief star Paula Radcliffe in Leiria, following on from yesterday’s victory in the 3000m.
An obviously out of sorts Radcliffe was beaten by the Bulgarian Volha Krautsova, who finished in 15:10.14, a new personal best, which comprehensively defeated her more illustrious rival who is the European 10,000m and Commonwealth 5000m champion. Radcliffe ran 15:27.67 for second, and the Portuguese former Olympic champion Fernanda Ribeiro was third in 15:38.34.
Impressive individual wins
However, the best individual performance of the day went to Kim Gevaert of Belgium's 22.97 win in the 200m.
Ireland's Roisin McGettigan won the women’s 3000m steeplechase but there was a problem with the timing clock, while The Netherlands' Lieja Tunks won the Shot Put in her season’s best of 18.20m.
Only one victory for the Ukraine
In the men’s competition, Ukraine rose to first place due largely to the high consistency of her athletes in secureing high points positions. The Ukrainian team secured 115 points overall despite only one individual victory. That win happened this afternoon in the Pole Vault and was responsibility of Vladyslav Revenko with a new personal best: 5.80m. The Greek Konstadinos Filippidis with a jump of 5.65m was second. Still only 18, Filippidis also made three attempts to equal the World Junior record at 5.80m.
Another two Portuguese victories
Portugal’s Francis Obikwelu and Rui Silva, both Olympic medallists in Athens, allowed the home crowd to enjoy another two victories for the home side. Nigerian born Francis Obikwelu was at ease with his first in the 200m race with 20.48 (0.0m/s), repeating yesterday’s 100m victory. Rui Silva also won with easy in the 3000m in 8:10.26, in a very tactical race.
Paulo Costa for the IAAF
Final scoring
Men
1 Ukraine 115
2 Greece 111
3 Netherlands 105
4 Portugal 102
5 Belgium 99
6 Romania 77
7 Ireland 65
8 Serbia Montenegro 44
Women
1 Great Britain & NI 134,5
2 Belarus 107,5
3 Belgium 90
4 Netherlands 85
5 Portugal 85
6 Bulgaria 83
7 Ireland 79
8 Serbia and Montenegro 53
