European Championships: No standing still for Irish athletes eyeing their LA story 

English’s desire to stand square in the moment on Thursday night was utterly understandable. The 33-year-old was 13 years chasing gold. 13 years chasing a career-crowning two-lap moment.

The 6am Friday flight to Sierra Nevada for a stint of altitude training was not boarded. There were celebrations to be drunk. Tomorrow, and whatever tomorrow holds, can wait.

With Europe finally conquered, a Diamond League win on the books, and 1.43 broken, the global championship stage is the obvious next turn. He has never advanced to a World or Olympic final. Six semi-final exits is his near miss roll call.

Come LA, he’ll be 35. LA got no airtime in Birmingham.

“I have to just process this gold medal tonight and I’ll make a decision on that in the future,” he replied when asked about sustaining his career for another two summers.

Birmingham is the midpoint of the LA cycle. Birmingham is a springboard to LA. Medal here and you can mix it there. Prominent here and you can perform there.

The Brum barometer is not to be discounted when eyeing up the deeper fields ahead. From a green perspective, the reading of the past week was most encouraging. The past week broke new ground for the number of individual European Championship medals it delivered.

English accounted, we’ll shortly arrive at his fellow podium climbers.

Nicola Tuthill was fifth in the hammer. A career-best placing. At 22, she is still a child in hammer years. At 22, she is already contending in an event for which Europe’s cage is the epicentre.

Free of injury, Farranfore’s David Kenny was sixth in the race-walk half-marathon. Another discipline where Europe so often dictates the standard.

The half-marathon distance will make its Olympic debut in LA. No sooner had Kenny described Saturday’s performance as a “massive step forward” when the 27-year-old was articulating out loud his goal of shaving a full minute off his 1:24.49 national record.

For the first time in Irish athletics history, both 4x100m relay teams secured a European final lane. The women posted a national record in doing so. The average age of the Sleeman-Neville-Leahy-Roy quartet is 25. Three of the men’s quartet are 25 or younger. All four men from the new-look 4x400m relay are 25 or younger. Their 3:01.76 went third on the Irish all-time list.

The substantial funding pot thrown at the women’s 4x400m project after their Paris fourth place must now extend to the other three. Multiple batons can beat a path to Los Angeles.

The sole relay disappointment was arguably the greatest disappointment. The 3:32.58 from the women’s 4x400m quartet was 10 seconds down on the silver medal from these championships two years ago.

The team’s depleted nature is no excuse. As Jack Raftery said of the men’s 4x400m, it cannot be a case of just four fit athletes. There has to be depth. At present, depth is sorely lacking.

The 50.06 400m lifetime best of injured Sharlene Mawdsley would have been sufficient for Birmingham bronze. Illness prevented Cian McPhillips from a potential double green 800m podium. Tactical indecision cost Sarah Healy a medal in the 5,000m event she may eventually decide to prioritise.

There will always be what ifs. It wouldn’t be a championship without them. There is no more wondering for Andrew Coscoran. In his eighth final appearance, and fifth at European level, the 30-year-old’s career has medal elevation and medal justification.

Let nobody attempt to devalue his bronze. Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr might have been absent, but Coscoran still had to run down two World champions over the closing 100m.

“It has given me a new lease in the sport and we can kick on from here,” said the metric-miler now coached by long-time friend and former teammate Paul Robinson.

For Rhasidat Adeleke, it is restart and relaunch rather than kick on. If she required silver to confirm her comeback, it is the two tear-filled years before Thursday’s 22.28 that carry substantially more worth in informing the shape of her second chapter.

Pain free, perspective found, and the middle finger given to pressure, her ceiling is once again limitless.

“I never cried so much in my life [this year]. Knowing the work it took to get here, having to show up on the days when I didn’t think I was worth much. It’s been a really hard year and to come out here and run my fastest time ever gives me so much confidence. I know I have so much more to come,” insisted the 23-year-old.

After excelling across seven events, for the seventh consecutive championship, Kate O’Connor went exploring the very theme Adeleke parted on.

Outside of American Anna Hall, she bested the entirety of the global heptathlon elite at the Alexander Stadium. 6,751 was her total. She is certain she is capable of 6,800, 6,900. And when you consider how even just her javelin was 87 points down on the 2025 World silver throw, that points prediction - only 11 athletes have ever bettered 6,900 - seems inevitable to materialise.

Kate's hope is that prediction and heptathlon perfection present themselves in LA. It is the one medal missing from her set.

“Slowly, I'm appreciating more and more the medals I've won because I'm realising how difficult they're going to be to continue to win,” said the 25-year-old.

“I can only hope that I continue getting it right. But I don't want to take it for granted, and I hope nobody else takes it for granted either, because these medals are extremely hard to win.

“I think it's great that I'm standing here saying that I want to be better, I know that I can be better, and I will be better. Hopefully, at the Olympics, I'll have a perfect heptathlon. That would be an ideal time, wouldn't it?” 

Birmingham, you were eventually brilliant. Now to see how far and how high the green bounce from here goes.