Eurosport - Sun, 19 Jul 19:36:00 2009
Great Britain's young Olympic hopefuls captured double gold in the men's and women's sprint relays to finish the European Under-23 Championships with 18 medals their most successful haul in history.
Team GB picked up five medals in total on the final day of action in Kaunas ensuring a joint-second place finish with Germany on 157 points.
"What a fantastic performance by the team," said GB team leader John Trower. "It's been fantastic from the first day and the team has excelled in all areas - on the track and on field - what a brilliant all round team performance.
"Three years out from London you've got to say there are probably half a dozen athletes who could step up to getting into finals there and that's exceptional - what a fantastic Championships."
The men's team of Ryan Scott, Toby Sandeman who won 200m gold on Saturday Rion Pierre and Leevan Yearwood who won 100m silver and bronze respectively, romped to victory in 39.09 seconds.
"I'm very happy," said Scott, who was a member of the gold medalling quartet in 2007 in Hungary.
"We won gold in 2007 and to come here and win again, considering we didn't have the chance to train that much is brilliant.
"I think we could have had that record if we'd had a few more practices but gold is gold I'll take that."
Sandeman added: "I didn't think about winning two golds before I came out here, I've just tried to enjoy the trip. I've loved being out here, it's been great."
The women's quartet of Annabelle Lewis, Joey Duck, Lucy Sargent and Elaine O'Neill also picked up an impressive victory in 43.89 secs.
"I didn't know where we'd finished," said O'Neill. "I thought we might be third."
Duck added: "I was screaming, 'we've got bronze, we've got bronze. And then we saw we'd won! I think we knew we could do it so long as we got the changeovers right."
Meanwhile, Luke Cutts, the newly-crowned British pole vault champion set yet another personal best to take silver.
The 21-year-old, who cleared 5.55m to take gold in Birmingham last weekend, went five centimetres better to finish second, having bowed out at 5.70m.
"I'm pleased to get a medal actually, because I was ranked fourth going into that," he said. "I never got the 5.70m, but I'll get it next time."
In the 1500m, James Brewer also captured silver, clocking 3:51.33 minutes while Emily Pidgeon picked up 5000m bronze.
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