European Championships: GB athletes 'ready for global success'

GB's men and women's 4x100m relay teams helped make it a record-breaking European Championships

UK athletes are ready to "go global" after their unprecedented success at the European Championships, says performance director Neil Black.

The GB team won a remarkable 23 medals, including 12 golds - three more than they have ever previously managed.

Among many plus points was the emergence of young British sprinters.

Black said: "This was a critical phrase in the process through to Rio and they've grabbed it. We are going global from here onwards."

On a final day of competition when GB won three out of four relay golds and Mo Farah became the most successful individual athlete of all time at the Championships, Black, appointed in September 2012, said: "We came here wanting to be competitive, but we converted in so many circumstances where people had genuine medal prospects.

"The next three years are the most important but these guys now know how to do it. They smashed it and we are all excited and chuffed to bits."

Farah, 31, added the 5,000m title to the 10,000m he had won earlier in the week, making it a record-breaking personal haul of five Euro gold medals.

"There's been some down times this year but two golds here is great and now I hope to get ready to face the big guys next year at the world championships," he said.

"There's been a lot of talk about me not being able to deliver but I've done my job."

Greg Rutherford continued the gold rush on the final afternoon by winning the long jump.

"I'm the biggest fluke going. I keep doing this. It's fantastic," said the 27-year-old.

"It's great to go out there and put out a couple of half decent jumps and have another title.

"I had the luxury of four rounds and leaving it. I had a slight tightening after the fourth and thought I'd wait and see if someone could jump further but they didn't."

The women's 4x100m relay team of Asha Philip, Ashleigh Nelson, Jodie Williams and Desiree Henry rounded off the championships with Britain's fifth gold of the final day, breaking a 34-year-old national record with a time of 42.24 seconds.

"I'm so happy," said Philip, 23. "We've been talking about the record for so long and wanted it so badly.

"I am so proud of these girls because we worked so hard for it. We deserve this, we fought for it."