Eilish lands silver in 10,000m final and Neil makes progress

Tuesday 16th August 2022

Photo by James Rhodes

Double Commonwealth medallist Eilish McColgan delivered another strong final performance to land silver in Munich.

The Scottish 10,000m Record holder and Birmingham 2022 winner over 25 laps had to be content with second this time over the same distance at the European Champs.

But, with Turkish athlete Yasemin Can clear on her way to the gold, Eilish managed to shake off Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter to drive clear and take second place in 30:41.05.

Eilish’s GB and NI team-mates Samantha Harrison and Jessica Judd battled valiantly to sixth and tenth respectively

It was a sixth major race in a matter of weeks for the Scot and the 31-year-old still has plans to tackle the 5000m final later this week in Germany.

‘I’m sort of happy, sort of disappointed,’ said Eilish.

‘Obviously I would’ve loved to have upgraded my silver from 2018 but it was a tough race tonight, I definitely feel it in the legs.

‘It was probably a tough ask to do three races in Eugene (at the World Championships) two in the Commonwealth Games and then to come back here again.’

Hard running early on from McColgan split the field and four athletes in a group became three. Then, just after the 7k mark, Can broke away and with the gap too big, Eilish and Salpeter were left to fight it out for the silver medal.

‘Can put in a 67-second lap at that point and it was just tough,’ said Eilish.

‘I have had a lot of races, she didn’t do Commonwealth Games or Worlds either, and I felt that was in my legs. She is an incredible athlete, one of the best in the world. I did my best but she was far too strong.’

BBC Sport coverage

Photo via Munich 2022

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Neil Gourley made it safely into the Men’s 1500m final with a strong finish to take fourth place in his heat – with the top four assured of progress.

Neil clocked 3:38.07 to go through and he was to be joined by fellow Brits, Jake Heyward and Matthew Stonier in the non-automatic slots.

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Earlier in the evening programme in Munich, Kirsty Law wore the GB and NI vest in discus qualifying.

The Scot threw out to 54.83m this time, to improve on her Birmingham best, but that gave her 10^th place and no progression to the 12-strong final.

‘I just couldn’t catch the throw today,’ said Kirsty.

‘I’m really disappointed but that seems to be how the season has gone. It just didn’t come together for me today. ‘

Luke Caldwell unfortunately was a DNF in the Men’s marathon in the warm conditions earlier in the day.

*There was good news around the Women’s 400m as Nicole Yeargin was one of those automatically given a bye to the semi-finals by European Athletics (based on SB performances, presumably).

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Tags: Eilish McColgan, European Champs 2022, Kirsty Law, Luke Caldwell, Munich, Munich 2022, Neil Gourley, Nicole Yeargin