With eight gold, one silver and seven bronze medals, the GB & NI team at the European U18 Champs in Jerusalem enjoyed a record number of podium places

If results at this week’s European Under-18 Championships in Jerusalem are anything to go by, the future of British athletics is in safe hands. With eight gold, one silver and seven bronze medals, the team topped the medals table at this event for the third consecutive occasion. Remarkably, all of the eight golds were won by female athletes too.

The four-day event unfolded in one of the most ancient cities in the world, Jerusalem, which strictly speaking is in Asia not Europe. Nevertheless many of the global and European senior champions of tomorrow were in action with the British team providing a greater quantity of talent than anyone else.

Germany finished runner-up on the medals table with four golds, seven silvers and three bronze medals with Italy winning three golds, five silvers and three bronze medals. The Netherlands, Spain, France, Norway, Finland and Poland followed, although Britain won 10 more medals than the Polish team, for example.

Britain also topped the European Under-18 Championships medals table at the inaugural event in Tbilisi in 2016 with five golds and 13 medals in total and in Gyør in 2018 with six golds and nine medals. The 2016 squad included gold medallists like Issy Boffey, George Mills and Holly Mills, whereas the 2018 event saw winners like Keely Hodgkinson and Max Burgin.

The class of 2022 saw Ophelia Pye add to the GB gold medal tally on the final night (July 7) in the 400m hurdles along with the victorious girls medley relay team, while Stephanie Okoro in the 400m hurdles, Iris Downes in the 800m and the boys medley relay runners won bronze.

Pye is coached by 1968 Olympic champion and former world record-holder David Hemery and she clocked a British under-18 record and championship best of 58.09 to take gold from Zoe Laureys of Belgium with Okoro clocking 58.44 in third.

“It was a bit scary at first, everyone did seem to set off quite fast – particularly on the back straight, I was worried I was going to get left behind,” said Pye. “But I stuck to my race plan and managed to battle it out and in the end and just about got it!”

In the girls medley relay the team struck gold with (main image above, left to right) Faith Akinbileje, Renee Regis, Etty Sisson and Rebecca Grieve clocking 2:07.18 to beat Italy and Spain.

Regis and Akinbileje got the team off to a good start on the opening 100m and 200m legs. Grieve then ran the 300m leg before handing to Sisson for the 400m final stage. Sisson (below) had work to do but battled her way to glory as the team clocked a championship best.

“I had to make sure I saved something for the home-straight, so I just sat on the Italian’s shoulder and gave it all I had at the end to bring home that gold medal for the girls,” said Sisson.

In the girls 800m, gold went to Malin Hoelsveen of Norway with 2:09.29 from Jana Becker of Germany as Downes and team-mate Ella Greenway finished third and fourth for Britain.

There was a British medal in the boys medley relay too as Teddy Wilson, Dejaune Lingard, Dean Patterson and Tom Gaunce combined to finish fourth in a race won by Italy, although the GB team were elevated to third after third-placed Denmark were disqualified.

Mattia Furlani of Italy emerged as one of the stars of the championships as he added the high jump title to the long jump gold he won earlier in the week. He jumped 2.15m to take the high jump crown after his eight-metre plus exploits in the long jump.

Spanish steeplechaser Sergio del Barrio won the 2000m race with 5:38.55, while the decathlon title went to Amadeus Graber of Germany with 7626 points.

In the girls long jump, Sweden’s Ayla Hallberg took gold with a championship record of 6.39m (1.0), while Iliana Triantafillou won the pole vault with 4.05m ahead of Victorie Ondrova of the Czech Republic and Ella Uddenas of Sweden.

Veera Sauna-Aho ensured both javelin titles went to Finland too. She threw 52.22m after her team-mate Topi Parvianen had won gold earlier in the week.

Gold rush on day two, click here

More medals on day three, click here