Suffolk athlete Callum Wilkinson won a bronze medal in the men’s 20K race walk at the European Under-23 Athletics Championships, held in Gavle, Sweden, earlier today.

An in-form Wilkinson, of Moulton near Newmarket, finished third in 1hr 22mins 13secs for the 20km distance.

Russia's Vasiliy Mizinov, the pre-race favourite, won in 1:21.29 with Turkey's Salih Korkmaz second in 1:21.32.

Wilkinson, who was the co-captain of the British squad, went through half-way at 10K in 40:53, and although content with a bronze medal, would have liked even better.

"The fact that I've got mixed feelings over a bronze medal shows how far I've come and the huge amount of work myself and my team have put in," said Wilkinson.

"I did it the hard way and it was a very tough race, but I've got my medal. I tried to stay with the Russian but I got a couple of cards so had to pull back and be more controlled. Yet I felt I was in better shape than that performance showed."