The 17-year-old Irish athlete adds 1500m gold to her 3000m title won on Friday.

After winning Ireland’s first gold at the European U18 Championships two days ago, Sarah Healy stepped back onto the track in Gyor, Hungary on Sunday (July 8) and delivered another stellar performance to claim victory in the girls 1500m final.

Going into the race some 10 seconds quicker than her nearest challenger the expectancy was on Healy to perform and that she did with a 4:18.71 win.

Healy led from the start and stretched out the field as she moved through gears her competitors just don’t possess at this stage of their young athletics careers. Over the final lap, the 17 year-old kicked and opened up a gap of 25m before crossing the line to win her second European title.

Great Britain’s Emily William’s took silver in 4:22.11 ahead of Poland’s Klaudia Kazimierska in 4:22.90.

The Blackrock athlete completed the first half of her distance running double with a dominating win over 3000m on Friday (July 6), running a championship best time of 9:18.05.

That performance added another distance to her European topping U18 list that already included the 800m and 1500m.

After that win, Healy said: “I wasn’t always planning on doing it but I decided: why not? The schedule worked out, so we thought we’d give it a go and it feels amazing. The competition is that bit tougher, but I’m really happy I did the 3km, it feels great.”

Photo: European Athletics via Getty Images

Heading into the championships Healy ran a personal best 1500m time of 4:09.25 at a meet in Tübingen, Germany on June 16. It was the fastest time in 32 years by a European youth athlete. She followed that up with an Irish U18 and U20 record over 800m in Belfast on June 26.

It has been a competition of great success for Ireland’s youngsters and not only because of the medals won by Healy, Rhasidat Adeleke, and Sophie O’Sullivan, but in the manner in which they performed in the finals.

European 200m champion Adeleke and 800m silver medalist O’Sullivan both clocked personal best times, running 23.52 (championship record) and 2:06.05, in their respective showdowns.

Photo: European Athletics via Getty Images

Brian Lynch (Old Abbey) was the only other athlete competing on the final day and he finished 26th in the boys’ decathlon with a total of 6,306 points. His leading marks after the first day of competition were: 100m 11.61, long jump 6.74m, shot put 12.48m, high jump 1.76m and 400m 53.12.

Lynch started day two (Sunday) with a PB in the 110m hurdles in 15.53, discus 35.93, pole vault 3.60m which was a 30cm PB, javelin 37.04m and finished out with the 1500m in 4:46.33. So that was four personal bests in ten events and valuable exposure to competition at this level.

The Irish team won four medals in total at the second edition of the continental competition.