THERE was heartache for one of the area’s most promising young athletes.

Tara Bird, 22, just missed out on a place in the final of the 800m event at the European Athletics Under 23 Championships, in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Bird, who runs for Woodford Green with Essex Ladies and gets coaching from Olympic hero Dame Kelly Holmes, came fourth in her heat.

Afterwards, Bird said: "I knew that it would be tough and I would need to run a personal best to qualify. The opening 400 metres went well but I couldn't hold on. I gave it everything I could."

Bird is among 60 members of Dame Kelly Holmes 'On Camp with Kelly'.

Holmes said: "The competition is always tough when you are racing at that level against the best athletes in Europe. It is Tara's first major international championship over 800m and I am sure that she will have learnt a lot from the experience."

Meanwhile, Bird’s local club saw success elsewhere at the championships.

Elaine O’Neil won gold in the UK 4x100m.

Earlier, O'Neil had come fifth in the individual 100m, with a time of 11.61s.

Callum Priestley won bronze in the 110m hurdles in a personal best performance of 13.63s.

Elsewhere, there was a huge battle for Woodford's young athletes to remain in the Premier Division of the UK Young Athletes League, in their final match at Ashton track on Sunday.

In the men’s U17 class, several athletes impressed.

Yousef Zatat threw 42.64m in the discus, while Tom Richards won the javelin event with a throw of 51.60m into a stiff headwind. Peter Kirabo was second in the triple jump with 13.39m.

There was an unexpected win for Ben Phillips in the 400m hurdles, with his time of 59.06s.

The U17 women also had a good day.

Rachel Dean jumped 10.94m in the triple jump and Ashley Robertson shone in the pole vault with 2.70m.

Georgina Ferrari won the U15 girls' 800m with her time of 2 min 27.9 sec.

There were also wins for Chelsea Ives, Sophie Fuhr, Rachel Dean and Hollie Pattie-Bellili in the U17 girls' 4x300m relay.

In the U15 girls 4x100m event, Chloe Michael, Kumi Fawole, Ebony Bob-Sample and Georgina Ferrari also won gold.