Beth Potter makes most of 5,000 metres call-up

WITH just one victory over the two days of the European Team Championships in Braunschweig, Great Britain and Northern Ireland ended well adrift of their hosts as Germany celebrated overall victory last night.

Eilidh Child: Second in 400m hurdles. Picture: Jane Barlow

Yet, with the UK Championships approaching next weekend, and the Commonwealths and Europeans closing on the horizon, the event provided an ideal barometer for Beth Potter to measure her progress. With fifth place on her senior international debut and a time just outside her 5,000 metres personal best, the Scot will return home today emboldened for the challenges which lie ahead.

Called up as a late replacement for Julia Bleasdale, the 22-year-old from Glasgow had the temerity to push herself into the lead with one lap remaining as a slow build-up exploded into a sprint for the line. And although she faded to finish in 15:42.22, it was yet another entry on a CV that will soon include her major championship debut in Zurich in August.

“It is good to represent GB like this,” she said. “I thought all the way about the placings. You know when you are catching someone with a lap to go and I was keeping an eye on the girl from the Netherlands. I think I was ninth on paper so, to come fifth, I am really happy with that.”

Others over the weekend were less content, with Eilidh Child drifting into second in the 400m hurdles, a position matched by the Olympic long-jump champion Greg Rutherford. The impact of long-distance travel hit Luke Caldwell hard as the Scot regressed to sixth in the 5,000m, while Lennie Waite was more satisfied with her seventh place in the 3,000m steeplechase. “That was a good run for me, my second best this year,” she said.

Elsewhere, Will Sharman’s second place in the 110m hurdles in 13.21 seconds moved him into third in the all-time UK rankings, while the ex-triple jump world champion Phillips Idowu, making his return to the British fold, was well adrift of his best in fourth.

Meanwhile, teenage prospects Shaun Wyllie and Kimberley Reed secured their places in the GB&NI team for next month’s world junior championships in Oregon with victories at the trials in Bedford. Wyllie won the 1,500m in 3:50.56, while Reed threw 58.13m to come up trumps in the hammer.

• The French Athletics Federation (FFA) says triple jump world champion Teddy Tamgho has been banned for one year for missing three doping tests.

The FFA says in a statement that Tamgho’s “good faith” was taken into account and that the ban is backdated to 18 March. The statement says that Tamgho did not “knowingly provide false information on his whereabouts” but that he missed the out-of-competition tests through “negligence”.

Tamgho was unavailable for the tests in December 2012 and again in January and March of this year. He became the third athlete to go over 18 metres when he jumped 18.04 metres to win the world title in Moscow last August. Britain’s Jonathan Edwards holds the world record at 18.29.