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Two down. Two to go. Amy Hunt’s dream of winning a record four gold medals at a single European championships gathered further momentum with a bravura performance in front of a raucous Alexander Stadium crowd.

Hunt was given a huge cheer by the 20,082 in attendance, by far the biggest of the championships so far, when she was introduced in lane seven. But she had to work hard to get past her domestic rival Dina Asher-Smith, in lane eight.

She then began to tie up. But Hunt had enough to take gold in 22.19 sec, just ahead of Ireland’s fast-finishing Rhasidat Adeleke, who ran 22.28 to win silver, with Asher-Smith winning bronze a hundredth of a second further back.

Hunt, a 24-year-old Cambridge graduate, had spent the day of the race relaxing by playing New York Times puzzle games, including Connections, Spelling Bee, Pips and Wordle.

But when she needed to perform Hunt proved her legs could move as fast as her brain. Now has to win 4x100m women’s and mixed relays to bring up the quadruple.

After 92 years, Ireland finally has a European Championship men’s gold medallist. And his name is English – Mark English. The 33-year-old doctor produced a surgical performance to take 800m gold, tracking and then overtaking the Croat Marino Bloudek in the home straight to win in 1min 45.26sec.

Bloudek clung on to take silver with Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui winning bronze. As the huge Irish contingent celebrated, the heart also went out to Britain’s Max Burgin, who was forced to pull out minutes before the race after suffering an injury in the warm-up.

It caps a summer of woe for Burgin, who also picked up a virus at the Commonwealth Games and failed to make it out of the semi-finals.

There was also no medal for another British contender, Elise Thorner, in the 3,000m steeplechase. The 25-year-old went into the race as the fastest European over the distance in 2026. However, she could finish only fifth behind Germany’s Gesa Felicitas Krause.

The race was also notable for a faceplant by another German, Lea Meyer, into the water jump while running in the medal positions. While Meyer got up, she could finish only fourth.

“It was gutting to see Lea actually fall, because I know her quite well,” said Thorner. “She is an amazing athlete. Shocking to see and trying to get over was a bit mad. But I was pretty spent with 200m so I was hanging on anyway.”

There was more joy for Germany as Leo Neugebauer hung on to win the men’s decathlon from his compatriot Niklas Kaul after collapsing over the line.

His score of 8,611 points proved enough by 38 points, even though the 6ft 7in Neugebauer looked to be wading through treacle over the last 50m before collapsing over the line.

But the event was marred by extraordinary scenes earlier on day two in the pole vault, after officials forgot to raise the bar from 4.70m to 4.80m. As a result athletes were under the impression that they were attempting 4.80m, while the bar was in fact still at 4.70m.

A European Athletics statement said that the “results of this additional 4.70m round were cancelled, and the competition was resumed at 4.80m, with all athletes given the opportunity to attempt the height”.

On a busy day for news, the European 5,000m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen criticised Britain’s Josh Kerr for being one of the athletes “ruining” the sport by missing the event in Birmingham. Ingebrigtsen, who won a brilliant gold medal in his first race after 11 months out of the sport, also told the BBC that he “could never” prioritise a time over a title.

Asked if he was disappointed Kerr is not racing in Birmingham, he added: “Very – and I think a lot of people should be, because that is what championships are all about.

“It’s not for us as athletes to choose almost where to participate. We have these championships for a reason, and that is for the best athletes to compete – that is the whole point.

“So I definitely think it is ruining the sport if we are not participating. We all have different plans, but I could never see myself in that position.”

Kerr broke the world mile record at the London Diamond League in July before winning the Commonwealth title a fortnight later. However, he opted out of the European Championships saying he was “flying close to the sun” of injury.

Ingebrigtsen did, however, praise Kerr’s world mile record performance of 3:42.66 as an “extremely good race” and “a very strong performance”.

But he also questioned Kerr’s explanation for his absence here. “Everything comes down to what you want to do. People go to work every day. It is not like because you are a professional runner you can’t work every day.”