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| Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus won the men's heptathlon gold with a personal best of 6282 points. |
Andrei Krauchanka lifted his first major senior title when he took the Heptathlon with a personal best score of 6282.
The Belarussian laid the foundations for his win with a season’s best in the pole vault before a well-paced personal best in the 1000m of 2:39.80.
Silver went to France’s Nadir El Fassi with a massive new best of 6237, an improvement of 338 points.
Bronze – just – was added to Roman Å ebrle’s medals cabinet after he just managed to hold off Netherlands’ Eelco Sintnicolaas by three points.
“This was a very painful competition for me,” said the gold medallist.
“But the audience helped me a lot, their clapping encouraged me at the jumps, at shot put etc.
“I achieved a new PB despite my injury: I hurt my right ankle one month ago at long jump training and this was a big problem for me during the competition.” The final event was yet another inspired performance by El Fassi who to waves of noise from the stands set a new championship best of 2:34.19 moving him up from fourth place to second overall.
“Before the last race, the 1000m,” said ElFassi, “I started to think about gold. And I started the race to get the victory.
“But this time Krauchanka really ran, not as usual. He is a great champion, he deserves his victory. But to be second in this European championships is really something. I'm more than happy.
“Before the competition, I told to myself that maybe, with a little bit of luck, I could go on the podium. And finally I fight for the gold medal. But it hasn't anything to do with luck. I trained very hard for that.”
The pole vault was where the Czech started to falter, but he held on gamely for five laps of the track for yet another medal – his 18th – in major championships. The way he clenched his fists lying flat on the track when the result came up on the screen showed just how much this one meant to him.
“I would not be able to run even a meter more than 1000 m,” admitted the Czech.
“I felt dead in the finish but it was worth it. I did not have much luck yesterday, especially in the high jump, but on the other hand, I had very good running.
“I really did not believe before the last event that I will have a medal. I knew the guys were very fast and I did not expect me to run 2.42... I would never bet I run that fast. No medal is a funny thing in this sport. It means so much to me and for my kids even more.”
After the first event Ingmar Vos of the Netherlands led with 922 points. Taking his cue from his compatriot Remona Fransen who took bronze in the heptathlon with a slew of personal bests on day one, Vos stormed to a lifetime best of 6.89, improving his previous mark by 0.08.
Darius Draudvila of Lithuania lay second, four points behind, and third, a further seven points adrift was Austria’s Dominic Distelberger.
Season top-two in the rankings, Å ebrle and Andres Raja of Estonia, were neck and neck on 861 points at this stage for equal fifth, but Raja unfortunately aggravated a thigh injury sustained two weeks ago and withdrew from the competition.
At the conclusion of the second event, the long jump, Draudvila emerged top after a 7.40 jump on 1828 points with Vos second, 6 points in arrears. Å ebrle, meanwhile, eased into third overall with a leap of 7.59, slightly down on his season’s best of 7.67.
It was in the shot that the favourite to collect his fourth title, Å ebrle, moved into the lead for the first time with a throw of 15.42.
Å ebrle thus totalled 2634, 11 points ahead of Draudvila with Olympic and world indoor silver medallist Krauchanka of Ukraine slipping into bronze medal position 59 points behind the leader.
The Belarus athlete had an inspired shot and improved his lifetime best by the massive margin of 60cm to 15.04.
The high jump belonged to El Fassi who had an inspired evening, raising his personal best to 2.12 for 915 points and moving from sixth into a bronze medal position.
Clearing 2.06 was enough to keep Å ebrle in the lead, a slender 31 points ahead of Krauchanka with El Fassi a further 23 points in arrears.
The hurdles saw the Belarussian (8.04) claw back a precious ten points on the Czech (8.08) with El Fassi ceding an equally valuable 13 (8.13).
In the pole vault, it was all change with Krauchanka slotting into gold medal position with a season’s best 5.20. Å ebrle slipped down into second, now 71 points adrift of the Belarussian.
El Fassi seemed safe in third still with an excellent 5mPB. Safe, that is, until Sintnicolaas entered the competition at 5.20, finally bowing out at 5.50 to move into bronze but with a slender eight-point lead over El Fassi and just 29 behind Å ebrle.