Britton seeks to get on the front foot

ATHLETICS:SCANDINAVIA IN June. The bright sunshine and nightless nights and the perfect playground for a summer-fest of athletics. Yet somewhere between the shadow of the Olympics and the shortening of the calendar it seems some of the prestige of these European Championships has been lost.

That’s not saying they’re handing out the medals with any less demands.

Judging by the reaction of Christophe Lemaitre after the Frenchman defended his 100 metres title, and likewise Britain’s Mo Farah after the 5,000m, there’s nothing ordinary about the European titles being won here. Helsinki is not letting anything go soft.

And anyone who front-runs 25 laps of this old Olympic Stadium will definitely have earned theirs – which is the likely tactic, and goal, in the mind of Fionnuala Britton going into tomorrow’s 10,000m.

A straight final, naturally, what is certain is Britton won’t be waiting around for any sprint finish, not when her only way of winning this race will be from the front. It’s exactly what Britton felt going into the European Cross Country in Slovenia, last December – and she came away with the gold medal, having broken clear well before halfway.

Only 18 runners have declared for the final, and Britton is ranked the fastest of the lot this season with the 31:29.22 she clocked at the Stanford Invite meeting, in California, on April 29th, where she finished third, and more importantly on the night ran inside the London A-standard of 31:45.00.

How fast is 31:29.22? Almost as fast as the 31:29.33 Sonia O’Sullivan ran to win this European title in Budapest in 1998 – in what was actually her 10,000m debut.

Of the six other previous champions (including the inaugural winner Ingrid Kristiansen in 1986) Paula Radcliffe’s 30:01.09 in 2002 remains a class above, and if Britton can come close to her best tomorrow evening then a medal of some colour is a likely reward.

At age 27, and not only an older and wiser athlete than ever before but considerably more confident about her running, Britton probably won’t get a better chance to win this title. Her only fear, as she admits herself, is of the unknown, given her 31:29.22 was also her debut at the distance: there are some things she may yet have to learn about 25-lap running.

That’s one of the reason’s she has come to Helsinki: her primary target of the summer remains the 10,000m at the London Olympics (even though she’s also qualified in the 5,000m and 3,000m steeplechase).

For the last few years Britton has been chasing the pack of elite women’s distance running; since winning the 2011 European Cross Country she’s capable of setting the pace, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. Her 31:29.22 also moved her up to fourth on the Irish all-time list (behind O’Sullivan’s Irish record of 30:47.59, plus Catherina McKiernan and Marie McMahon), yet she admits there are components to 10,000m running she’s still not familiar with.

“I didn’t really know what was good going into that Stanford race,” she says, “I just knew I wanted to run the A-standard. The pace felt all right, but also a bit weird. In a 10,000m you can go through bad patches and still come back, whereas in shorter races you’re running as fast as you can, you’re at your top level, you can’t really come off that, then go back to it.

“In the 10,000m you can survive a bad patch. But I’ve only done the one. Obviously it went well for me but I wasn’t even sure what pace I was on, and after a while I didn’t know what the lap times were. I also got dropped at about 6km. When I got back up to them it was easier.”

The absence of the all-conquering Africans automatically turns the medal talk from the nearly impossible to the very plausible – especially given Britton’s performance in the European Cross Country. Helsinki may well be remembered for Britton turning her cross country credentials on to the track, although the Wicklow runner is cautious.

“I’ve a lot more experience at cross-country than the 10,000m. In one way I don’t know how to look at it, because it’s actually only my second race at the distance. The important thing is that I’ll have had another race at the distance going into the Olympics

“But this is a championship, so you want to do your best. I just need to have a plan, and stick to it, and hopefully it’ll work out.”

Defending champion Elvan Abeylegesse of Turkey is not here, although there are still some threatening names, not least the German Sabrina Mockenhaupt, who has run 31:14.21. There are some familiar faces too, such as Dulce Felix from Portugal and Britain’s Gemma Steel – who took silver and bronze behind Britton at the European Cross Country.

For Britton, the ultimate difference now is the input of her coach Chris Jones, who has not only raised her game but also her tactics. It’s unlikely anyone will be surer of their plan tomorrow.

“We do discuss it, but I’d have a lot of faith in him because it’s working for me, and the triathletes and other people he’s worked with. So I’ve a lot more confidence now in what I’m doing, and I like racing that bit more.”