Jacobs and Lückenkemper take 100m golds as Asher-Smith pulls up in final

Dina Asher-Smith’s hopes of defending her European 100m title after a swift recovery from a hamstring injury ended in pain and disappointment as she was forced to pull up halfway through a dramatic final. There was frustration too for another Briton, Daryll Neita, who had looked the woman to beat, but missed out on gold by 0.01sec.

Meanwhile the huge 45,000 Olympic Stadium crowd roared their approval as Gina Lückenkemper got up on the line to take gold in 10.99sec – the same time as Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji. Neita tried desperately hard to recover from a horror start but could only take bronze in 11.00sec – 0.05 slower than she had run in the semi-final. Later she revealed she had suffered cramp on the blocks.

On a night where Britain won three medals, including a silver for Zharnel Hughes and bronze for Jeremiah Azu, behind the Italian Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs, there was obvious concern for Asher-Smith, who had bravely decided to compete despite suffering a tear in her hamstring in the world championships in Eugene last month. However Asher-Smith later revealed that she had decided to play it safe after suffering from cramp in the race.

The men’s 100m, meanwhile, boiled down to a simple equation. If Jacobs, the Olympic champion, was back to full fitness after withdrawing from last month’s world championships, then he would win gold. But if he wasn’t, he would open the door to a British triumvirate led by Hughes and Reece Prescod, who had taken gold and silver at these European Championships in Berlin in 2018.

A run of 10.00sec in his semi-final showed that Jacobs was primed and ready. And so it proved as he powered home in 9.95 in the final, equalling the championship record. But Hughes ran an epic race