Disappointing in Zurich

In the end, after all the effort, Germany's 92-strong athletics team took home only eight medals from the European Athletics Championships in Zurich. Two years ago, at the same event, Germany won twice as many.

Speaking after the close of the meet, German Athletics Association president Clemens Prokop said that the young team had done what they needed to do, but nothing more.

"In the events where we were an outside chance, we didn't perform as we had hoped," Prokop said. "But we are aiming for the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. That's where our focus is."

Prokop tried to make the best of a difficult situation. "A lot of our young athletes did raise a few eyebrows, though, with their performances."

Strong final day

Germany's medal tally was looking particularly bad up until the last day, where shot-putter Christina Schwanitz and steeplechase runner Antje Möldner-Schmidt both managed to pick up gold. Up until then, only highly-touted shot-putter David Storl and Olympic champion Robert Harting had managed to come out on top in their respective events.

Germany's men's 4 x 100 relay team also grabbed silver in one of the last events in Zurich, to boost the German team tally.

The German quartet of Julian Reus, Sven Knipphals, Alexander Kosenkow und Lucas Jakubczyk ran a stunning 38.09 seconds in the final, in what Reus described as a "great run." Only the British men were faster, finishing in a time of 37.93 seconds.

Overall, Russia and Poland managed considerably more silverware than Germany. The Germans stayed ahead of them in the official count, due to their comparatively high number of gold medals.

In contrast, Great Britain and France won an impressive 23 medals each in the six-day meet, with both nations benefitting from strong performances in the sprint events. Team GB topped the medal count with 12 gold medals, their best haul ever at a European Championships.

al/tj (dpa, SID)