Former Coloma pupil helps track stars Amy Hunt and Dina Asher-Smith make sporting history on final weekend of European championships in Birmingham, as Croydon Harrier doubles his gold haul
Relay for the ages: Imani-Lara Lansiquot yells in triumph as she anchored the GB 4x100m team to a 1sec margin victory
Sprinters Imani-Lara Lansiquot and Romell Glave both won relay golds in the final weekend of action at the European athletics championships.
Lansiquot anchored the British women’s 4x100metres team to a stunning victory on Saturday night, the third international relay gold medal of her track career for the former Coloma School pupil and Trinity sports scholar.
Britain’s women’s quartet, which included Bromley and Blackheath’s Dina Asher-Smith, Amy Hunt and Success Eduan, clocked 42.05sec, finishing more than a second clear of silver medal-winners Switzerland in an event that is often decided by mere hundredths.
Lansiquot took over with a clear lead on the final leg and roared in triumph as she crossed the finishing line. Kristal Awuah, the Herne Hill Harrier who had run in the heats, also brought a gold medal home to south London.
The women’s team’s gold medal was the third stage of Hunt’s successful bid for four golds at a single championships, something never before achieved, as Britain’s new sprint star was part of the mixed 4x100m on Sunday. In that race, Asher-Smith made history winning her eighth European gold of her career and a record-breaking 11th European medal.
South Londn and proud: Romell Glave with Herne Hill’s Kristal Awuah show off their relay medals in Birmingham
Glave, the new European 100m champion, was denied the chance of a third gold medal in the mixed relay, a new event on the schedule where running order and baton skills meant there was no place for him in the quartet, with Hunt on the fourth leg.
But the Croydon Harrier had seized his second European gold in the men’s 4x100m on Saturday night, as the British men’s team also proved too strong for the best that Europe could muster.
Lansiquot, 28, the fourth-fastest British 100m sprinter of all time, has Olympic relay medals from the last two Games, Tokyo in 2021 and Paris two years ago. Her sights are now on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“The dream hasn’t changed,” she wrote after the end of the Birmingham championships.
“This comeback season was never going to be perfect: 10th in Europe hurt, but I’m proud of the way I get back up and keep fighting. Because greatness isn’t built on perfect days.”
Lansiquot has run faster than ever this season, and she revelled in what she called “anchoring a relay win for the ages!”
She said: “Let this be a reminder that progress isn’t always linear, but the belief never wavers! I know there is more to come.”
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