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Griggs ‘blinked first’ during race for gold medal in Turkey

NICK Griggs continued his outstanding run of form at the European Cross Country Championships with another individual medal, although gold eluded him once more.

Having suffered a heart-breaking stumble 100 yards from the finish line in 2022 when victory seemed assured at under-20 level in Italy only to be pipped on the line by Team GB’s Will Barnicoat, the 19-year-old Newmills teenager regrouped to claim bronze and team gold in Belgium last year and last weekend after making the step up to under-23 level, he sealed silver in Turkey, finishing just one second behind defending champion Barnicoat once again.

“Two European Championships in two years I’ve finished behind [Barnicoat] and when I crossed the line, with about a second to go, I let out a smile that just said ‘this can’t be happening again’,” Griggs laughed.

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“It wasn’t an identical scenario [to Italy in 2022] but I lost to him by a second again which was close enough!”

While a little disappointed not to complete the full set of European Cross Country Championship individual medals in Turkey, Griggs was pleased with the way he ran his race, although he admits, he possibly ‘blinked first’, giving Barnicoat the advantage going into the home straight.

“I think I did everything perfectly up to about 400 metres to go,” he observed. “I did everything me and my coach said to do. We said not to do anything until the home straight, which was 320 metres, so if I was still there to go for it.

“I did all that, tracked all the moves during the race and Will made a move on the last lap and I made sure I was there and covered it pretty decisively until the last hill, where there was a bit of sand, and he and the guy who finished third in the end, they pushed it up the bill and they gained about five metres on that bit of sand.

“The Athletics Ireland Endurance Co-ordinator said ‘don’t blink first’, which is a really good way to describe it and I really did blink first by giving them those five metres.

“I showed on the home straight I had loads left, I had that sprint finish, but I maybe lost concentration for a split second on that hill, or blinked first and while it was only five metres or a second, a second and a half at most, when it’s a European Championship and fine margins come into play, I ended up getting beaten by two footsteps.

“But it’s good to be able to look at something and reflect and know I could have maybe done something to be sitting here as a European champion, which is frustrating, but I ran the race I ran and it was good enough for second position and a silver is not too bad, is it?”

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Griggs, who has two years left at under-23 level, remains hopeful of earning that coveted gold medal before he moves up to the senior ranks.

“I’ve shown consistency and that I belong at European and World level. I think that’s my fifth Euro Cross individual medal across the age groups,” he said.

“I always want to do it, I want to participate in it, I’ve had great success in it and I enjoy it so I think as long as I can get there next year in decent shape and the same the year after, hopefully one of these years I’ll become the first Irishman to win a gold medal at Euro Cross because we have never had a male champion.

“That’s something I’m hoping to do in the next few years.”

The University of Ulster student, who turns 20 tomorrow (Wednesday), will now switch his focus to the indoor track season and he will travel to America in the new year where he hopes to achieve European Indoor qualification over 3000 metres before trying to qualify for the World Championships [outdoors] in Tokyo in September at 5000 metres.

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