{"id":590340,"date":"2026-08-11T21:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T21:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/590340\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T21:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T21:56:15","slug":"european-championships-doubt-proves-costly-for-sarah-healy-as-she-narrowly-misses-out-on-5000m-bronze-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/590340\/","title":{"rendered":"European Championships: Doubt proves costly for Sarah Healy as she narrowly misses out on 5,000m bronze \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any split-second moment of doubt can turn the course of the tactical distance race, and by her own crushing admission cost Sarah Healy<\/a> a European Championship medal in the 5,000m. No excuse, just lingering regret and understandable heartbreak.<\/p>\n

Fourth will always be the loneliest place in any championship. Only having got herself into a medal position with one lap to run, the bell clanging in her ear, Healy\u2019s costly moment of doubt came midway down the backstretch. When the Italian Nadia Battocletti made her final lung-busting surge for gold, Healy was briefly boxed in on the inside. By the time five runners stole ahead around the final bend, Healy\u2019s medal chance was slipping away. Fast.<\/p>\n

Still she chased, storming past Dutch medal hope Maureen Koster and Britain\u2019s Hannah Nuttall before running out of track. Marta Garc\u00eda of Spain, who crucially covered Battocletti\u2019s decisive move, held on for silver, her compatriot Micol Majori winning an unexpected bronze.<\/p>\n

Healy was .30 of a second away from bronze, her time of 15:40.95 almost 50 seconds off her best. But this was an entirely tactical race which, in truth, should have fallen right into the hands of the Dubliner.<\/p>\n

\u201cFourth is a really hard place to come,\u201d said Healy, her bloodied lower legs from the repeated spiking of other athletes evidence of just how tactical things were. \u201cIt\u2019s really disappointing to be so close to a medal, and in a race like that. I felt like I had a good chance of winning a medal. I did give it my best, but I do have a bit of regret.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think on the last lap I just had a bit of a moment, sort of doubt. Then I was playing catch up in the last 150. I was coming, but I had too much work to do. It\u2019s easy to say that when you\u2019re off the track, but I just feel maybe it (a medal) was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly was, Healy doing everything right until the final 250m, where in that moment of doubt she dug a hole for herself that she couldn\u2019t climb out of in time. Battocletti proved yet again why she\u2019s among the very best in the world, on course to repeat her 5,000m-10,000m double. Healy\u2019s inexperience over the 12-and-a-half laps \u2013 this being the 25-year-old\u2019s second competitive 5,000m outing \u2013 also cost her in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, it went by so fast, it was literally like \u2018stay on your feet, stay on your feet\u2019. And I was trying to stay calm and be like, \u2018you\u2019ve loads time\u2019. I find it hard in the 5K, it\u2019s just like two laps to go is like the kick almost. Whereas I\u2019m sort of in my head that feels really long, a long way out. And so I\u2019m really doubting, \u2018can I make it?\u2019<\/p>\n

\"SarahSarah Healy alongside eventual winner Nadia Battocletti of Italy during the women’s 5,000m. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I feel like that\u2019s really what cost me over that last lap. I\u2019m not saying it I would have ran like way faster or been winning. But I think that inexperience cost me maybe a little bit as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I could have gone with her (Battocletti), she\u2019s obviously like a class above. If I\u2019d gone in third, I think I would have held on. It\u2019s just so hard to even think about, because the difference between bronze and fourth is huge. What can you do?<\/p>\n

\u201cI did everything right, honestly, until the last lap. I think the girls who came second and third, they kind of came from behind, maybe they saved a bit of energy. I\u2019d have to watch it back, but I probably won\u2019t be able to watch it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the gun, the race fell into Healy\u2019s hands. The field promptly bunched, crawling the first lap in 80 seconds. They continued to run at a pedestrian 6:38.03 at 2k, effectively turning into a 3km race \u2013 perfect for Healy, the European Indoor champion over that distance from last year.<\/p>\n

She will be back on the track with a shot at redemption in the heats of the 1,500m, her specialist event, on Saturday. \u201cI\u2019m very happy to have another go at it. I knew it was a gamble doing this (the 5,000m). It\u2019s not ideal preparation, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to have taken a lot out of my legs, so you just have to reset and get going for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having blazed his way into the semi-finals of the 100m, Bori Akinola gave himself a shot at making the final when finishing fourth, clocking 10.38 seconds. The top-two in each race, plus the two fastest finishers thereafter progressed, but Akinola\u2019s time was surpassed in the second semi-final, ending up 16th overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hoping to run quicker, looking for a better time but the wind conditions weren\u2019t in my favour,\u201d said Akinola. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more confidence there going into the next major championships, so for a debut, it\u2019s not the worst. Obviously I was coming to make the final. I still have another shot in the relay, so I\u2019ll put all my energy into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isreal Olatunde, who made the European final four years ago, got a bye straight into the 100m semi-finals, where he finished seventh in 10.49. Afterwards, he said a quad muscle injury sustained in May had threatened his entire season. The final was won by Britain\u2019s Romell Glave in 10.09, just ahead of team-mate Jeremiah Azu.<\/p>\n

Jack Raftery also gave his all in the semi-finals of the 400m, the Dubliner storming around the first 300m before fading in the homestretch to finish seventh in 45.81.<\/p>\n

While the evening\u2019s attendance was again disappointing, the Irish voices were frantically clear, willing Healy and Raftery to find something extra down the homestretch, but it wasn\u2019t to be. The wait for a first Irish medal continues.<\/p>\n

Wednesday \u2013 Irish in action<\/p>\n

11.05am: Women\u2019s 400m heats (Sophie Becker)<\/p>\n

11.40am: Women\u2019s 200m heats (Lauren Roy)<\/p>\n

12.20pm: Men\u2019s 800m semi-finals (Mark English)<\/p>\n

7.45pm: Women\u2019s hammer throw final (Nicola Tuthill)<\/p>\n

8.20pm: Women\u2019s 200m semi-finals (Rhasidat Adeleke, Lauren Roy*)<\/p>\n

*pending qualification<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any split-second moment of doubt can turn the course of the tactical distance race, and by her own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[249470,163615,61,60,183187,14939,112],"class_list":["post-590340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bori-akinola","tag-european-athletics-championships","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel-olatunde","tag-sarah-healy","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}