MY EURO HIGHS AND LOWS

BRITS WHO EXCELLED

DINA ASHER-SMITH was top of the pile, but a fine show also from Katarina JohnsonThompson, who took heptathlon silver behind Nafi Thiam. After years of showing fallibilities, the 25-year-old proved against a very strong field that she has the nerve and game to be a serious contender at world and Olympic level. Excellent breakthroughs for 100m champion Zharnel Hughes and 400m gold medallist Matt Hudson-Smith.

BRITS WHO FAILED

LORRAINE UGEN was world leader in the long jump in 2018 but didn’t make the second half of the final. Morgan Lake, the Commonwealth Games silver medallist, was also ‘distraught’ after only 1.91m in the high jump and finishing seventh. Commonwealth hammer champion Nick Miller, who is usually a world-level competitor, came 10th.

STATE OF PLAY

BRITAIN hit their gentle UK Sport medal target of 12-16 and it will be a major relief to performance director Neil Black that Asher-Smith, Johnson-Thompson, Hughes and Reece Prescod are shaping up as legitimate contenders on the global front. But it shouldn’t disguise the fact that other areas are still falling short. They took 23 medals in Zurich 2014, the last European Championships in a non-Olympic year.

MOST UPLIFTING

HUDSON-SMITH taking gold in the 400m. The 23-year-old explained ahead of the event how he moved out of his mother’s house in Wolverhampton on a whim a year ago to save his career in America. If he hadn’t gone, he was going to quit, having fallen out of love with the sport. He had caused disqualifications at both the Rio 2016 and 2018 Commonwealth Games relays and saw himself as a ‘jinx’, so this was a nice redemption.

MOST DEFLATING

RUSSIAN high jumper Danil Lysenko lost his neutral athlete status ahead of the championships for a breach of anti-doping regulations after failing to provide his whereabouts information. Yet another reminder of the biggest battle facing athletics.

BEST OVERSEAS ACT

JAKOB INGEBRIGTSEN is too young to drive in Norway, but the 17-year-old became the youngest athlete to win the 1500m title on Friday night and then went and won the 5,000m gold on Saturday. It’s a success that runs in the family — his 27-year-old brother Henrik won the 1500m European title in 2012 before his 25-year-old sibling Filip took the crown in 2016.

GREATEST DRAMA

BELARUSSIAN marathon runner Volha Mazuronak suffered a huge nose bleed shortly after the start of her race yesterday, leaving her face smeared in blood. The race got even more eventful for her, though, with a navigational error in the final stages, but she was still able to hold off France’s Clemence Calvin to win the gold medal.