Barcelona 2010: Great contests in a magnificent setting – European Athletics (EAA) – News

European Athletics remembers some of the best moments of the recent Barcelona 2010 European Athletics Championships in the first part of a two-part retrospective. The second part will be published on Friday 20 August.

Every championships has its defining moments – Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics; Bolt in Beijing; Klüft, Kallur and Olsson in Göteborg’s sea-of-yellow Ullevi stadium four years ago.

For the host nation, Barcelona 2010 will doubtless be remembered for the two 1500m finals when Arturo Casado in the men’s and, 24 hours later, Nuria Fernández in the women’s brought back memories of Fermin Cacho’s extraordinary Olympic gold medal winning run in the same event in the same stadium on Montjuic back in 1992.

Like Cacho 18 years earlier, both had the Spanish fans on their feet as they romped across the line ahead of more fancied rivals. For Casado, tipped by Cacho himself, it was a tactical triumph as he led home three Spaniards in the top four, while the emotional Fernández described her victory on the final evening as “the best race of my life” and “a dream come true”.

“I have been fighting for this for 15 years and finally at 33 I got the gold medal,” said the Swiss-born middle distance runner after leading Spain to gold and bronze ahead of Russia’s big favourite Anna Alminova.

Those may have been Spain’s only triumphs from the 47 events but there were other sweet moments for the hosts’ athletes, not least José Manuel Martínez’s joyous reception as he swept around the final jam-packed bend to finish second in the marathon, the 38-year-old leading Spain to Marathon Cup victory; and world champion Marta Domínguez gracefully accepting defeat in the steeplechase despite her huge disappointment at failing to land gold as the championships’ poster-girl.

Yet, perhaps Spain’s biggest success was to stage the 20th European Athletics Championships in such a magnificent setting as Barcelona’s Olympic stadium. Perched high on Montjiuc, with the beautiful Catalan capital spread out beneath it, the hallowed arena hosted crowds of up to 38,000 each day.

That there were some empty seats visible throughout the event maybe meant that Spanish sports fans had enjoyed enough success for one year. In competition terms, at least, these were not Spain’s greatest championships (they won “only” eight medals compared to 11 in 2006), as Russia adopted their usual position at the top of the table while France and Britain outperformed even their own most optimistic predictions to rank second and third.

The French, in particular, had a brilliant week. Not only did they win eight gold medals – double their previous championships best – but in 20-year-old sprinter Christophe Lemaitre they had the most successful individual and the undoubted star of the show.

Lemaitre had arrived in Barcelona with the weight of expectations on his young shoulders. Topping the rankings in both sprints, and with a national 100m record of 9.98 to his name, Lemaitre could have been excused for feeling the pressure.

But if he did, it never showed as he lived up to his billing, and his potential, in superb fashion. The super strong Frenchman powered from behind to take both individual titles, only the seventh male athlete to win a European sprint double, before becoming the first man in history to add the sprint relay gold.

While all too often his skin colour seemed to attract the most attention (especially in the Spanish press, sadly), it was Lemaitre’s performances that really stood out as he became the first Frenchman since Claude Piquemal back in 1962 to win the 100m, and showed huge determination to claw his way back from fifth with 50m to go to win the 200m with a dip at the line.

Perhaps it is a mark of his personality that Lemaitre picked out the relay as his most important triumph because, he said, it was “a team effort”.

In fact, his individual successes inspired “a team effort” by the French throughout the championships as Renaud Lavillenie and Romain Barras won pole vault and decathlon golds; Mahiedine Mekhissi and Bob Tahri dominated the steeplechase to finish first, in a championships record, and second respectively; and Yohann Diniz walked solo for three hours forty minutes to retain his 50km walk title, one of only two athletes to successfully defend their Göteborg crowns (the other being Norway’s javelin champion Andreas Thorkildsen).

With the dramatic emergence of Myriam Soumaré, France also provided the championships’ biggest breakthrough act. Soumaré, a last-minute inclusion in the French team, improved from 23.01 to 22.32 for a stunning 200m win after she had already taken a shock bronze medal in the 100m just two days earlier.

While Lemaitre was the French star, Mo Farah was Britain’s. Four years after losing by just 0.09s to Jesús España over 5000m, Farah found redemption, and more, as he exceeded the achievements of all Britain’s past distance running greats with a 5000m-10000m double that puts his name up there on Europe’s honour board with Emil Zátopek (1950), Zdiszlaw Krzyszkowiak (1958), Juha Väätäinen (1971) and Salvatore Antibo (1990).

While the twice beaming face of Farah provided Britain’s brightest moments, in terms of standards, it was their world champions who led the way, as Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu produced world class performances to win their heptathlon and triple jump crowns.

Ennis beat the Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska with 6823 points, 83 more than Carolina Klüft’s championships record and just eight short of Denis Lewis’s national record, while Idowu leapt to his lifetime best to defeat the much-fancied Frenchman Teddy Tamgho with 17.81.

There was also great success for British hurdlers as Dai Greene won with seven metres to spare over his training partner Rhys Williams in the one-lap version, the first one-two in this event since 1954, while Andy Turner served up a surprise victory in the 110m final.