Cian McPhillips believes that gold medals are going to become an increasingly more frequent event for Irish athletes following another brilliant day of results at the European Athletics U20 Championships.
The Longford man was one of three Irish athletes to win gold on Saturday with his success coming in the 1500m event while Nicholas Griggs claimed the 3000m title and Rhasidat Adeleke dominated the 200m event to add to the gold she won in the 100m race on Friday.
Speaking after his victory in Tallinn, McPhillips said that he saw many more good days on the horizon for Team Ireland.
"We really are producing some superstars in the past few years. It's only getting more with every passing championship," he said.
"Obviously we have Rhasidat Adeleke, sure she’s near worth two or three golds every championship.
"Now we have some new and exciting guys coming up in the distance events, I know they’re in the sprint events, the decathlon. We’re really becoming a proper team that’s capable of challenging the big names in Europe."
19-year-old Longford AC athlete McPhillips, who finished fourth in his semi-final in the 800m at the European Indoor Championships in Torun in March, crossed the line first in the 1500m in a time of 3:46:55 to hold off Rick Van Riel of the Netherlands.
"I could actually see the shadows of the guys coming up behind me so I was really, really pushing from 150 (metres out) on," he said of the finale.
"I was trying to control the rest of the race purely because I knew that in a 1500 that last 200 is so, so important.
"In fairness the others put it right up to me and it was a real battle to the line and luckily I just had a bit of a head-start that allowed me to get it in the end."
Phillips finished third in his heat with a time of 3:48.67, and he put his improvement down to his positioning early in the race.
"In the heat I really left myself an awful lot to do. I was in eighth with about 300 to go and I just had to push all the way to qualify.
"This time I was in lane one at the start so I really had to get out hard to avoid getting boxed in. Luckily I was able to move out and just position myself on the leader’s shoulder, and that’s what really got me the gold."
