After suffering a cramp so severe she felt like retiring in the blocks, Daryll Neita stormed through the pain barrier to a fine 100m bronze medal at the European Championships in Munich on Tuesday.<br /><br />It was the same shade she won at the Commonwealth Games, though it was all the more impressive due to the excruciating stab she felt in the moments before the gun.<br /><br />As a coincidence that will have severely deflated the British contingent, Dina Asher-Smith also suffered cramp in the same race, but while she was forced to limp home in a distant last, Neita battled to third behind German gold medalist Gina Luckenkemper and Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland.<br /><br />Such was the closeness of the showdown, all three were separated by just 0.01sec, with Neita crossing in 11sec and Luckenkemper beating Kambundji by a nose on the line, having trailed the entire way.<br /><br />Neita, whose cramp was symptomatic of a grueling three-championship summer, said: ‘I honestly wasn't going to race but who is going to believe me if I said I was cramping up before? I got a medal somehow on one leg.’<br /><br />For Asher-Smith, the issue in Munich compounded the disappointment of missing the Commonwealth Games due to a hamstring injury. Her 200m bronze medal at the worlds means she has generated a strong return for the season, albeit with a sense of what else might have been.<br /><br />She said: ‘I'll go back and have a chat about my recovery and how I'm hydrating. I feel good which is why I'm frustrated.’<br /><br />In the men’s 100m, Italy’s Marcell Jacobs added the European title in a championship record of 9.95sec to the Olympic gold he collected last year. He was run close by Britain’s Zharnel Hughes, who won silver in 9.99sec, ahead of his fast-rising team-mate Jeremiah Azu in bronze.<br /><br />Earlier, Britain’s Jacob Fincham-Dukes thought he had won the long jump silver, only for his best jump of 8.06m to be retrospectively ruled a foul under protest by the French team.
