Pinto burns off challenge

Antonio Pinto of Portugal is the first of the superstars of the 17th European championships after a run of exceptional character had taken him to victory in the final of the men's 10,000 metres.

Picking up the pace in the second half of the race, Pinto destroyed the twin German challenge of former Olympic 5,000 metres champion Dieter Baumann and Stephane Franke to win in a time of 27 minutes 48.62 seconds.

It was the perfect boost for his team-mate, Fernanda Ribeiro who this evening, attempts to break Sonia O'Sullivan among others, in the equivalent women's race.

Pinto, known as the iron man of the roads, complemented the power and endurance of the marathon runner with all the classical attributes of track competition to see off Baumann and Franke in turn, on an evening when temperatures climbed into the high 80s.

The conditions unquestionably accounted for the mundane early pace, slow enough to suggest that the race was being set up perfectly for Baumann to deploy his renowned finishing speed.

At 6,500 metres, however, Pinto injected extra pace into the race and from a situation in which 10 runners were bunched at the head of the field, it quickly turned into a procession.

Three laps of 63 seconds followed by two of 64, sufficed to kill off all but the two Germans and soon, even they were lost in the distant pursuit. Baumann, perceived as the bigger threat, was the first to capitulate, to be followed soon after by Franke. To his credit, the former Olympic champion recovered to win the race for the silver medal but at that stage, Pinto was already safely across the line.

The British runner, Jon Browne ran with characteristic courage to finish fourth but the much-hyped Spanish challenge surprisingly failed to materialise with Bruno Toledo and Enrique Molina a long way out of contention over the final 1,000 metres.

"This is one of the best days of my life," proclaimed Pinto who, at a stage when the sap was still rising, could finish only 13th in this event at Split eight years ago. "I was always conscious of the need to separate the two German runners and I decided that it had to be done long before the finish.

"Once I had got away from them, I found more strength and I felt very comfortable over the last two laps. Now I'm going home to relax."

The new shot putt champion is Oleksandr Bagach of the Ukraine who confirmed recent form by getting out to 21.17 metres, his best of the season, to win by 19 centimetres from Germany's Oliver Sven Buder.

Bagach opened with throws of 20.02 and 20.26 but it was not until his last visit to the circle that he finally pulled out one good enough to break the abrasive Buder.

"I do not want to declare anything at the moment," said Bagach when he eventually met the press. "Though I won the competition, some problems arose as the judges said I had some weights hidden in my socks to make my rotation more efficient. At least that is what they say."

The local man, Tibor Gecsek leads the way going into the final of the hammer championship with a fine throw of 79.44 metres. Sadly, the performance of the two Irishmen, Paddy McGrath and Roman Linscheid dropped way below expectations.