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Gina Akpe-Moses claimed a rare sprint championship gold medal for Ireland on Friday afternoon by winning the 100 metres at the European Athletics Under-20 Championship in Grosseto, Italy.
The 18-year-old Akpe-Moses, who runs with the Blackrock club in Louth, had the legs and nerve to hold off the German Keshia Kwadwo, her time of 11.71 seconds just 0.15 outside her lifetime best run earlier this year.
It had been 38 years since Ireland had two sprinters in a championship final at this level, with Akpe-Moses’ team-mate Ciara Neville also finishing an excellent seventh in 11.98.
“I hoped to get a medal, and eventually the dream came true,” said Akpe-Moses. “In the semi-finals I started thinking I could jump on the podium, but only in the last 20m of the final I had the thought ‘I can get the gold medal’.”
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Not since 1979 has there been two Irish finalists in a sprint final at this level when Patricia Amond and Michelle Walsh competed in Poland. On Thursday, she finished a superb second in her semi-final to qualify automatically for the final equalling her personal best of 11.56 into a headwind.
Elizabeth Morland also finished an excellent fifth with a national record 5,801 points in the heptathlon with Kate O’Connor eighth and youth record 5,759 points.
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