The third evening session of the European Athletics U23 Championships in Bergen on Saturday (19) began with a blaze with a pair of championship records in the 400m hurdles.
Bergen 2025 is being live streamed on the European Athletics website courtesy of Eurovision Sport.
In the men’s 400m hurdles, Germany’s Owe Fischer-Breiholz set the tone for the rest of the session by winning the title in 48.01, erasing the previous championship record of 48.37 which had stood since to world record-holder Karsten Warholm since 2017.
“That was definitely the best day of my sporting career so far. I can't believe it!” he rejoiced.
"The medal was in my mind the whole time. Others told me I could also run the World Championship standard but I just wanted to focus on the race here and knew the rest would follow. It wasn't the perfect race yet; if we analyse it, we'll probably find a few more mistakes, probably at the first hurdle.”
And in a high quality final, Fischer-Breiholz led all three medallists below the previous championship record. Türkiye’s Ismail Nezir was forced to relinquish his crown but he did have the consolation of setting a lifetime best of 48.33 to win silver, edging out Matic Ian Gusek who equalled his national record of 48.34.
For Gusek, this medal was particularly poignant as his participation looked in some doubt due to a recent Achilles rupture. “I am very satisfied with my race. On 1 June I ruptured something in my tendon and I wasn't able to run for three weeks,” he said.
After becoming the first Finnish athlete in history to break the 49 second-barrier with 48.97 in the semifinal, Antti Sainio improved the national record again to 48.61 to finish fourth.
54.08 championship record for Newnham
In the very next final, Great Britain’s Emily Newnham rewrote the record books in the women’s 400m hurdles, taking gold in a championship record and lifetime best of 54.08 - just 0.05 shy of 1992 Olympic champion Sally Gunnell’s British U23 record - to win by over one second
Newnham led into the home straight but the 21-year-old Brit is seemingly at her best over the last two hurdles, flowing away from her floundering rivals to win gold by a clear margin and becoming the third British winner of this title after Tasha Danvers-Smith in 1999 and Perri Shakes-Drayton in 2009.
“I feel a lot of relief right now. It is hard. I have never been in a position where I have been coming in as number one. It was like a different kind of pressure. The race itself was awful. I did not get my pattern right. I am so excited; when I bring my hurdle time down, my flat time gets faster. So I think it is promising and I feel like there is more to come,” said the Brit who will be looking to strike gold again tomorrow in the 4x400m relay.
The German duo of Vanessa Balde and Vivienne Morgenstern won silver and bronze in lifetime bests of 55.36 and 55.45 respectively with Sweden’s reigning European U20 champion Moa Granat just missing out on a place on the podium in fourth in 55.56.
