ATHLETICS:IN THE final desperate moments of a championship 400 metres final there is no room for error. Only total and crushing precision. David Gillick always knew that. But he got a shattering reminder of it last night when out-leaned, narrowly, painfully, frantically, for the European Championship medal he so honestly craved.
In the end Gillick fell across the finish line, rolled over onto the track, then looked up in disbelief. There was no medal, and he knew it. Fifth, in 45.28 seconds, the form book fairly torn up over the final 100 metres, as the young Belgian Kevin Borlee stole the ultimate lead to win in 45.08 seconds, a season best. But there was precious little between bronze and fifth; just .05 of a second, to be exact.
Indeed Gillick always needed to produce something special to fend off the formidably quick Borlee twins.
Jonathan was expected to be the most dangerous of them, yet he ended up seventh in 45.35.
“I’m just gutted,” said Gillick, before we even asked him how it felt. “It was all about performing on the night, and I just didn’t do that. I know that was my race, my chance to get on the podium. But it was a mess of a race.
“I never got into a rhythm, I was maybe a fraction sluggish out of the blocks and didn’t get fluent down the back straight, a little bit all over the place. Coming around the bend everyone was together.
“ It was so close . . . maybe if I had five more metres I might just have nipped in. What was it, 0.5? But within that there was five other guys.
“But it’s 400 metres. Not 404 metres. Ah, I don’t know. Of all the last championships, I’ve been most focused on this. I put so much in. And I don’t think I got any of it back tonight.
“ I was fighting and fighting, but maybe that was the problem. Once you go tense, good luck. And I did get tense. But then everyone gets tense. That’s championship running, and I got to hand it to the other guys. I can’t stand here and give a reason. Unfortunately I tensed up.
“Sometimes when it comes to the final it’s dog eat dog. Going into the 200 metre mark I knew I was a little bit down, and tried to make up the ground.”
In an ironic twist, Sonia O’Sullivan also ended up outside the medals, in fourth, on that very same finishing line, back at the 1992 Olympics. And on the back of two fourth places for Robert Heffernan in the walking events it really was another sickening result for the Irish team.
Yet championship finals often produce a surprise package, and produced it twice here when the two British hopes, Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney, even with their difficult lane draws, won silver and bronze. Bingham won silver from lane eight, in 45.23, and Rooney the bronze from lane one, in the same time, 45.23. And the young Russian Vladimir Krasnov in lane seven finished fourth in 45.24.
They don’t call this event the man-killer for nothing. Gillick started well, but appeared to lose ground down the back straight, and in the end left himself with just too much to do over the final 100 metres.
No Belgian man had won a medal at these European Championships since 1994, and that was big pressure on the young shoulders of the Borlee twins, aged just 22. Yet championship gold medals usually go to those who want it most, and that ultimately was what sent it Kevin Borlee’s way.
Earlier Paul Hession lined up for the 200 metres with just an outside chance of a medal, and indeed ended up sixth in 20.71 – as Christophe Lemaitre of France, winner of the 100 metres on Wednesday night, finished like a high-speed train to snatch the gold medal from Britain’s Christian Malcolm.
Only his vest separated them, 20.37 to 20.38. For Hession it was still a fair achievement to make the final, although typical of him there were some heart-broken words afterwards.
“I worked really hard around the bend, because that was the only way to stay in contention,” he said, “especially from lane two. I did that okay, and felt I could take some of them. They just went away again, but I’m not going to be too hard on myself.
“I’ve done everything I can this year, and come up short. Something is missing in the last 50 metres, I’m not sure why. That’s disappointing. I have run up to where I’m ranked this year. But that’s not enough. You want more, don’t you?”
Fionnuala Britton finished 11th in the 3,000 metres steeplechase; Niamh Whelan broke through to the semi-final of the 200 metres, claiming sixth in 23.31; and Deirdre Ryan cleared a season best of 1.90 metres in the high jump, narrowly missing the final.
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