Georgia Hunter Bell’s glorious summer continues to take her to fresh summits. The 32-year-old was simply sublime as she demolished a decent European 1500m field to add another title to her swelling collection. It proved to be the final gold British medal of these championships, as Britain agonisingly missed out on coming top of the medal table to Italy by the slimmest margins.
First Jazmin Sawyers failed to win long jump gold by a centimetre to Larissa Iapichino of Italy. Then, in the final race of the championships, Italy’s Lorenzo Benati held off Britain’s Charlie Dobson by 0.03sec in the men’s 4x400m relay. It meant that Italy finished top with 10 gold medals, one ahead of the British team, but it still marked an excellent effort on a thrilling final day.
Hunter Bell led from the front. As expected, the women’s 1500m turned into a slow and tactical race. But in the last lap burn up, Hunter Bell truly ignited.
Her 58.44sec final 400m took her 10 metres clear as she crossed the line in 4:07.78. No wonder when she crossed the line she applauded herself for a job well done. Over the past five months, Hunter Bell has won world indoor 1500m gold, 800m Commonwealth Games gold, and the European title.
She now believes she can add a fourth to her collection at the Ultimate Championships in Budapest next month. Soon afterwards Sawyers jumped an outdoor long jump personal best of 6.99m to win silver against a high-quality field. It was all the more impressive given that she sustained a serious achilles injury 18 months ago.
But she fell tantalising short of Iapichino, who jumped seven metres. France’s Hilary Kpatcha finished with a leap of 6.98m. Two more silvers for Britain quickly followed in the women’s and men’s 4x400m as Britain finished with 19 medals.
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