European Championships: Morning session round up
The British success story that is the 2010 European championships rolled on further today with Andy Turner and William Sharman progressing through to the semi-finals of the men’s 110metres hurdles.
Medal hope Turner cruised through with a time of 13.48 seconds. It was a decent first-round performance for the Englishman whose heat took a dramatic turn when former European champion Stanislav Olijar was disqualified after a false start.
Turner wasn’t bothered though and raced away to victory with a solid time, he was joined in the semis by fellow Briton Sherman, who actually beat Turner earlier in the qualifying trials. Sherman eased into third place with a time of 13.60 to keep British medal hopes healthy.
Meanwhile over in the 200 metres, blast from the past and former Olympic gold medallist Marlon Devonish won his heat with a time of 20.68 seconds. Devonish like Mark Lewis-Francis, who won a silver medal in the men’s 100 metres, lost his lottery funding so it is a case of triumph over adversity as he got through to tonight’s semi-final in excellent form.
Devonish was joined in the line-up for the next round, by Jeffrey Lawal-Balogun and fellow veteran Welshman Christian Malcolm who both progressed through without any trouble.
Also new European 100 metres champion Christophe Lemaitre showed no ill effects of last night’s heroics by also progressing to the semi-finals of the 200 metres after winning his heat with a time of 20.64 seconds.
The Frenchman said he got very little sleep last night, but it didn’t show as he comfortably went through as he aims to dominate the short distance sprint events.
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