Gesa Krause wins dramatic obstacle final at European Championships in Birmingham

Gesa Krause won gold in the 3000 meter steeplechase in a dramatic final at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham and gave the German team its first title in the continental championships. Olivia Gürth won bronze. The final was dramatic for Lea Meyer, who fell at the last water ditch on her way to a medal and came fourth. This mishap also happened to her in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup. Krause celebrated her third European Championship triumph after 2016 in Amsterdam and 2018 in Berlin. For Gürth, bronze is the greatest success in the 24-year-old's career, but she has already been European champion several times at the junior level. Defending champion Alice Finot from France won silver. After her fateful fall, Meyer was disappointed and even defiant: As the fastest runner on the medal path, she stumbled headfirst into the water ditch on the last lap. “I still maintain that I am the best obstacle runner in Europe with Alice Finot, definitely, one hundred percent,” she said after the race. »I think I deserve the medal. Nevertheless, a fall like that shouldn't happen, it's stupid." Meyer also had a very clear opinion about the winner's tactics: "You're aware of it: Gesa doesn't want to do anything," said Meyer, who had determined the final from the beginning on Thursday evening for a long time, on ZDF. “She sits through it and then runs out the back.” Meyer said about Krause and Finot in a somewhat conciliatory way: “The two of them are much older than me – and they deserve it. I don’t have anything more to say.”

Lea Meyer was on course for a medal for a long time before she fell.