The European championships ended today with brave but disappointing results for the Irish. Alistair Cragg was Ireland’s best hope for a medal today and had been in good spirits all week long anticipating this exciting final but it all ended in heartbreak today with less than 3 laps to go. Cragg had just injected a fast pace to take the lead in the home straight when injury struck. Cragg attempted to drive through the pain but was forced to pull up less than 200 meters later in some distress and was later stretchered off the track. It was later confirmed that Alistair had suffered further damage to his achilles injury that he had been carrying coming in to the competition. The men’s 4x400 team did not fair any better unfortunately. Even after a promising start by McKee, the writing was on wall by the time Gillick got the baton in 9th place and despite valiant efforts by both he and McCarthy they could not better yesterday's performance and finished in 9th place in a time of 3:05.57. These disappointments however should not overshadow the spectacular performances throughout the week by this young and promising Irish squad. Derval’s fantastic performance in winning the joint silver medal in the 100m Hurdles and setting a new NR in so doing, reaffirmed her position as one of the world’s best sprint hurdlers. Other stars to shine over the week were..

• Joanne Cuddihy reaching the final of the 400m, breaking her PB and coming close to breaking the current NR.
• Liam Reale making the final of the 1500m after a long season of competition in the USA.
• Women’s 4x100m team (Derval O'Rourke, Joanne Cuddihy, Ailis McSweeney, Anna Boyle) breaking the NR in the qualification rounds.
• Mary Cullen taking almost 16 seconds off her PB in the 5000m
• Deirdre Ryan equalled her national record of 1.92m

Full Details on the Irish Athletes performances:

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Irish Men

Event	Name	DOB	Round Reached	Best Performance
200m	Paul Hession	83	Semi-final	20.8
200m	Paul Brizzel	76	Round 2	20.84
200m	Gary Ryan	72	Round 1	21.14
400m	David Gillick	83	Semi-final	46.16
400m	Paul Mc Kee	77	Round 1	46.48
400m	David McCarthy	83	Round 1	46.53 SB
800m	David Campbell	82	Round 1	1:48.7
800m	Thomas Chamney	84	Round 1	1:50.12
1500m	James Nolan	77	Semi-final	3:49.94
1500m	Liam Reale (10)	83	Final	3:31.97 (8th in final with 3:42.65)
5000m	Martin Fagan	83	--	DNS
5000m	Alistair Cragg	80	Final	13:50.12. Pulled up injured in the final.
10,000m	Martin Fagan	83	Final	28:54.04 (11th place)
4 x 400m	David Gillick Paul McKee David McCarthy Brian Doyle (Subs) Antoine Burke Brian Murphy		Final	3:04.59. (9th in final with time of 3:05.57)

Irish Team Women

Event	Name	DOB	Round Reached	Performance
100m	Anna Boyle	83	Round 1	11.6
100m	Emily Maher	81	DNS	Injured during warm up
200m	Ciara Sheehy	80	Round 1	DNF
200m	Joanne Cuddihy	84	--	Did not contest this event
200m	Emily Maher	81	--	Did not contest this event
200m	Anna Boyle	83	Round 1	23.94
400m	Joanne Cuddihy	84	Final	51.09 (8th in final in a time of 51.46)
400mH	Michelle Carey	81	Round 1	57.61
1500m	Aoife Byrne	81	Semi-final	4:16.07
5000m	Marie Davenport	75	Final	DNF
5000m	Mary Cullen (7)	82	Final	15:25.8 PB (12th Place)
10,000m	Marie Davenport	75	Final	33:05.48 (22nd Place)
3000 S/C	Roisin McGettigan	80	Semi-Final	9:47.37
3000 S/C	Fionnuala Britton	84	Semi-Final	9:49.2 PB
100m H	Derval O’Rourke	81	Final	12.72 NR (2nd Place)
High Jump	Deirdre Ryan	82	Final	1.92m =NR. (13th - 1.84m in Final)
Hammer	Eileen O’Keeffe	81	Qualifciation	65.07m
4 x 100	Anna Boyle Joanne Cuddihy Derval O’Rourke Ailis McSweeney (Subs) Ciara Sheehy Emily Maher		Semi-Final	44.38 NR

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Photographs of tonights action courtesy of Tim O'Dowd of irishrunner.com

Alistair Cragg in action in the 5000m final tonight	Alistair receiving treatment after pulling out of the race with an achilles tendon injury	Brian Doyle on the second leg of the relay	Dave McCarthy on the anchor leg	David Gillick on the penultimate leg of the relay	Paul McKee who started today the 4x400m relay