Andreas Almgren took down a championship record which had stood since 1978 with a 27:23.44s run over 10,000m at the European Championships in Birmingham, England.
Initially the race looked to be a tactical affair, as a clustered field went through the opening kilometer in 3:16.9s (which is 32:50 pace). By the end of the third lap, Almgren, 31, had moved to the front and started to push the pace, stringing the field out and whittling the lead group down to five before the halfway point — which they hit in 14:05.7s.
Almgren’s seventh and eighth kilometres were his fastest of the race (2:38.5s and 2:34.6s), which put a gap between him and eventual silver medallist Dominic Lobalu of Switzerland, who won this event in 2024. Behind them, world 10,000m champion Jimmy Gressier tailed Italy’s Yemaneberhan Crippa in a battle for bronze. It was Gressier, the Frenchman, who emerged victorious with a late kick, more than 40 seconds after Almgren had crossed the line.
This is the Swede’s first senior international title — he took 10,000m bronze at the World Championships last September — and his aggressive approach meant he chased down the championship record of Martti Vainio, going a little over seven seconds faster than that time from 48 years ago.
“It was quite amazing,” Almgren said in an interview on the track. He felt “like I was dying” in the final 2km, and laughed that it “might have been a stupid run (but) was quite successful in the end.”
After a cagey, tactical start, Andreas Almgren pushed a formidable pace in the second half of the race (Sona Maleterova/Getty Images)
Lobalu was gracious in giving up his continental title: “Almgren was too strong. I couldn’t hold that pace any longer. The faster pace suited me. I wasn’t sure how fast it would be but I was less confident of doing well if it was a slower race.”
Almgren’s only focus had been the gold medal. “I wasn’t planning to go for it (the record), but I didn’t want it to go slow,” he said.
The men’s race panned out in a complete contrast to the women’s 10,000m on Friday evening, when Italian Nadia Battocletti produced a 28-second last 200m to fly round the bend and come out on top in a tactical race — the 31:41.17s time was more than a minute off her PB. But this is a championships, where only medals matter, and Battocletti made history with a second straight European long-distance double, adding a successful defence of her 10,000m crown to the 5,000m gold from Tuesday night. Her finishing kick was so fast that she won by more than four seconds despite being next to Maureen Koster (silver) and Jana van Lent (bronze) with half a lap to go.
The men’s 1,500m played out in similar fashion, as Great British duo Jake Hayward and Jake Wightman made surges in the final lap, only to be overtaken by all three medallists. Stefan Nillessen had the fastest finish and took gold with a final 400m in 53.84s, taking the senior title in a modest time (3:35.70s) after winning this event at the under-23 championships last summer. Samuel Pihlstrom of Sweden and Irishman Andrew Coscoran ran themselves to silver and bronze medals from deep in the field, with fewer than two seconds separating first and 10th place.
Elsewhere at the Alexnader Stadium on Saturday night, Kate O’Connor sealed a historic women’s heptathlon gold for Ireland, their first ever mixed-event medallist, setting a national record (6,751 points) in the process.
She produced the best high jump in the field (1.86m, tied with Poland’s Adrianna Sulek-Schubert, worth 1,054 points) and also recorded four-digit hauls from the 100m hurdles (13.30s, 1,080pts), 200m (23.79s, 1,001pts) and long jump (6.55m, 1,023pts). “A few years ago I would never have dreamt this would have happened,” said O’Connor, who won Commonwealth gold earlier this summer and is a three-time world championship medallist too. “It’s been a long two years, there’s been a lot of medals but also the increasing pressure that comes with every competition.”
Kate O’Connor on her way to a historic heptathlon gold (Ben STANSALL / AFP via Getty Images)
Going into the 800m, the final of the seven events, O’Connor managed the task of having to finish within three seconds of Dutch heptathlete Emma Oosterwegel. She ran 2:11.74s for the title, less than a second back on Oosterwegel, who clocked the quickest time of the 21 athletes to hold onto silver and finish with a personal best 6,713pts. Sofie Dokter, her compatriot, claimed bronze and also a PB.
There was late drama in the men’s javelin when, in round five, German Nick Thumm threw 83.76m, the furthest of his career, to steal first place from Julian Weber, his countryman. Then, with his final throw, Weber launched the javelin to 90.40m for gold, a European lead and the championship record — bettering Steve Backley’s 89.72m mark from 1998.
The men’s and women’s 4x100m relays closed out the night. Great Britain won both, the men running 38.45s to beat Germany (38.64s, silver) and Belgium (38.70s, bronze). The women’s quartet produced a dominant display, victorious by more than a second over Switzerland and Poland, who took the two minor podium spots. It means GB repeat the continental relay sweep for a third time, having done so at the 2014 and 2018 editions.
