Arturo Casado opened the host nation's gold medal account at the 20th European Athletics Championships with an emphatic win in the men's 1500m in Barcelona on Friday evening.

Can you become European champion barely 12 days after placing "only" second at the national championships? Well, the answer is “yes, of course”, provided you comes from Spain and compete in the the star-studded 1500m event. That was the case of Arturo Casado, a 27-year-old Madrid-born athlete, who on Friday finally landed a major medal outdoors after being a cruel fourth in Göteborg four years ago.

In addition, Casado extended the Spanish string of successes at the distance, with at least one Spaniard having made the podium over the last five European championships, having won three out of the five titles at stake.

Fast-finishing German Carsten Schlangen bagged the silver medal while Spanish champion Manuel Olmedo landed bronze in his first year as a 1500m specialist.

There was huge disappointment for the British squad as Andy Baddeley and Tom Lancashire arrived in Barcelona as the fastest European athletes of the season and they also seemed powerful in the semifinals but the Briton 1500m squad will return home empty-handed.

Meanwhile, Spain’s Reyes Estévez missed the bronze medal by a mere 0.13s at his last 1500m race at a major championships as he eyes a change of distance in the near future.

The race became the typical cagey championships affair. It was local hero Estévez – born very close to Barcerlona – who took the lead with Casado running at his shoulder but the split for the opening 400m was a pedestrian 1:04.43. The second lap was similarly slow and the packed group reached the 800m in 2:08.65 still with Estévez ruling the race.

The first remarkable movement was made by Lancashire some 1000m into the race when the 25-year-old Briton injected a much brisker pace; he was rapidly chased by Baddeley, Estévez and Casado while Olmedo was a relatively distant 10th at the bell. The crowd went wild when Casado moved to the forefront just before the last turn ahead of Baddeley, Lancashire and Estévez.

Before entering the closing 100m Estévez overtake Lancashire to place third while an outstanding Casado opened a five-metre margin on the others, he didn’t relinquish and crossed the finish line absolutely unchallenged in 3:42.74, his last 300m taking 38.80 seconds.

Some 30m left Estévez was still marginally in silver medal position after Baddeley faltered but the duo of Schlangen and Omedo came from behind like a pair of trains to grab silver and bronze respectively in a tight finish that saw no less than six athletes covered by only 0.39s. The 29-year-old Schlangen took silver barely 0.02s ahead of Olmedo, 27, who denied Estévez his birthday celebrations as the latter turns 34 years of age on Monday.

An ecstatic Casado declared: “I can’t believe it yet. I’m now the European champion at home! After so many fourth places to my name (European indoors in Madrid 2005, European outdoors in Göteborg 2006 and world indoors in Valencia 2008) it’s now my turn for the gold medal. I have worked really hard over, I have changed my build-up for the championships and it has paid off happily. I felt strong throughout the whole race. I’m the happiest man in the world right now”.