Team GB Win Bronze in Gateshead

June 24, 2013 by Rachel Kershaw in Festivals and Events 0

It seems that even a year after the London 2012 Games momentum is still going strong as enthusiastic Athletics fans filled Gateshead International Stadium on the 22nd and 23rd of June for the European Athletics Team Championships! For cutie pie visitors Kai and Caprice (below) it was the perfect excuse to dig out their Union Jack accessories and see some of their favourite sports personalities up close and in action!

Like the youngsters, I too was full of anticipation as I arrived in Gateshead, even while walking from the car park to the Stadium on Saturday I could feel excitement in the air and the sun was even shining which put an extra spring in my step!

Now I’m definitely no sports journalist so if you want to know exactly who won what across the whole weekend then you’ll find all the results on the official European Athletics website but here are few of my favourite photos and memories from the events…

Eilidh Child knocked half a second off her Scottish 400 metres hurdles record, crossing the finish line at 54.42. As you can see by the picture above, Eilidh’s competitors were left well behind and I found her power and determination really inspiring!

The whole stadium were on their feet as Jessica Judd timed her 800m run to perfection and crossed the finish line in just over two mins! It was amazing, she barely seemed to break a sweat while the rest of the women collapsed in heap as soon as the race was over!

Like many others at Gateshead Stadium on Saturday I was massively looking forward to seeing double Olympic gold medal winner Mo Farah take part in the 5000m and he certainly did not disappoint! For the first few laps he seemed to ‘let’ the German athlete Arne Gabius take the lead, but Mo was just biding his time to entertain us all with a spectacular finish. In the end, poor Arne could only manage 6th place as Mo seemed to have some kind of in-built turbo system, a bit like DRS on an F1 car. It was incredible to watch him cross the finish line with a huge grin on his face and doing his now world-famous ‘Mo-bot’. He was as cool as a cucumber, even wearing his sunglasses for the whole 5000m then doing an extra lap of honour too, just brilliant!

As I left Gateshead International Stadium on Saturday (promising myself I would join a gym on Monday), I bumped in to the lovely Perri Shakes-Drayton. The GB team captain quite rightly looked proud as punch as she had just won the women’s 400m in an impressive 50.50 seconds, the fastest time in Europe this year!

There were lots of other highlights across the weekend (the weather on Sunday was not one of them) but did you brave the rain to cheer on Team GB and if so what were your best bits?

By Rachel Kershaw