Pozzi 60m gold is a major step

ANDREW POZZI last night cruised to gold in the 60m hurdles at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade.

Pozzi, the world leader this year, breezed through his heats and then won the final in 7.51secs to clinch the first major medal of his career.

France’s defending champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde took silver, with Czech Petr Svoboda in third.

Pozzi said: “It was a scrappy race so I really had to work hard to get back after a slow start but I’m really happy.”

Earlier, Laura Muir declared it was a job well done after she maintained hopes of double European glory on the track.

Muir, who finished seventh at last year’s Rio Olympics, qualified for today’s 1500m final as well as the 3,000m final.

“You always want to win a race, so you just have to be sensible and just do what is necessary,” said Muir. British team-mates Steph Twell and Eilish McColgan will join her in tomorrow’s 3,000m final after finishing second in their heats, while Sarah McDonald qualified for the 1500m final.

McColgan said: “I definitely think it’s one of the stronger fields here. You’ve got a European record holder [Muir] and a 30min 26sec Olympian over 10k [Turkey’s Yasemin Can], so it’s pretty impressive and it’ll be good to be a part of.”

Laviai Nielsen cruised into the 400m final, having finished second in her heat, but Eilidh Doyle failed to progress past the semi-finals.

Dan Bramble finished a lowly 12th in long jump qualifying after posting 7.64m, falling short of the 7.90m qualifying target and missing out on the final.

Rachel Wallader was 10th in shot put qualifying after throwing 17.35 and also failed to advance.