Three days after running her race, Limerick’s Sarah Lavin claimed bronze in the final of the 100m hurdles at the European Games in Poland on Saturday, an event which also comprises three divisions of the European Athletics Team Championships.
Lavin’s impressive time of 12.82 on Wednesday was just 0.03 off her personal best set at the European Championships in Munich last summer. Gold went to home favourite Pia Skrzyszowska (Poland) who ran a time of 12.77 on Saturday, while Nadine Visser of the Netherlands took silver in 12.81.
Those athletes competed in the Division One race in Krakow, where France’s Laeticia Bapté also clocked a time of 12.82. But Lavin’s time was faster by a very important one thousandth of a second, meaning the 29-year-old Irish sprinter is the first athlete who won a Division Three race to take an athletics medal at these Games.
“I’m so, so happy, I’ve dreamt of winning this, winning a major senior medal since I was a kid,” said Lavin. “It’s a really strange way to do it – to have that run by myself the other day and to have to play that waiting game to watch all the best from every country compete against each other. Division Two was really stacked, and again Division One today right to the wire.”
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Referring to her support team, and her late partner Craig Breen, Lavin said: “I’ve had incredibly special people helping me over the last few months, over last years, but ultimately I think someone very special up there is helping me ... they like the drama obviously today to bring it right to one thousandth of a second, to get that bronze when the best were there.”
Irish fighters Jenny Lehane, Michaela Walsh and Kelyn Cassidy all won their opening bouts the Games, progressing to the last 16.
The Games are a key milestone on the path to Paris 2024 with Olympic qualification spots on offer in all of the weight classes.
Lehane was the first of the Irish in action in the round of 32 and the Ashbourne teacher was a 3-2 winner over her Serbian opponent in the bantamweight division (54kg).
“She was a tricky opponent. I was down 5-0 after the first round, it took a lot to leave it in the round previous, so the decision came to me in the second round, and the final round I came out on top again, so I’m happy out,” said Lehane. “I’m just soaking up the whole experience. It is a huge competition, the rules stay the same, the ring stays the same, so I’m happy out!”
Tokyo Olympian Michaela Walsh was a unanimous winner over Olga Pavlina Papadatou from Greece. While the Greek boxer took the opening round, the experienced Walsh fought back to overcome and win convincingly 5-0 in the end, progressing to the last 16 of the competition at featherweight (57kg).
“It was a very very tough opening fight, I came back to the corner and I was down, but I just stuck to the plan,” said the Belfast woman. “I had a slow start, but came into it. Knowing I was down I had to up it a bit, because obviously, I wanted to come out the winner. I just listened to the corner, everything they told me to do, I done. Then I had a fantastic second and third round, and thank God I am standing here as the winner.
“I was up going into the final round, but it was still level on a few cards, and she had a chance of coming back, but he [coach Zaur Antia] just said, ‘listen, she’s going to put a big push on’. I was trying to meet her with a backhand as she came in. She was running in recklessly, I was trying to sidestep and go again. It was very hard to do that because she was such a tough and experience opponent. Thankfully, today was my day.
“Every tournament you go to, the first fight is almost the hardest, you are waiting on your draw, you’re finished your training camp and doing very little training because it is a taper and peaking at the right time, and you are a bit anxious waiting, but to finally get out and get that first one out of the way. It feels brilliant, I actually wish I was on again tomorrow because I feel buzzing and ready to go again, but for today, I’m just going to enjoy the victory and go and shout my team-mates on for later on.”
Kelyn Cassidy from Waterford made it three wins out of three for Team Ireland, the Saviours Crystal BC fighter winning his bout 5-0 over Norwegian Mindauga Gedminas in the middleweight division (80kg).
“Unreal, it was a great performance to get the Games off to a start. I got a good opponent, good win and very happy with it. I’ll kick on from here and keep going,” said Cassidy.
“From the very start I just went with the game plan that the coaches gave me beforehand, just to be busy, be active, jab. Be relaxed; that is what I did in there, so can’t really give out at the minute. I knew from being in there I was comfortable. I wasn’t getting tagged too much and was catching him with a lot of shots, so was really, really happy in there. I just am happy I performed and couldn’t get better in an opening bout.”
Reigning European champion Amy Broadhurst showed her class in the ring this evening dominating her Serbian counterpart Milena Matovic 5-0, to ease through to the round of 16. Reflecting on the fight Broadhurst said: “I kind of knew in the first round… I knew by the way she came out that she probably didn’t really want to know…they were probably just in there to survive after last year in the Europeans but she’s a tough opponent and she showed it in there today.”
On the second day of diving competition, Jake Passmore has qualified in 10th place for Saturday night’s three-metre springboard final on his senior individual international debut.
Irish shooter Jack Fairclough was in action in the skeet competition with three qualification rounds, He scored 71/75 and is currently lying in 26th position after the morning’s work.
