No joy for Irish on day 3 in Beijing
There was no joy for the Irish women on day 3 of the IAAF World Championships in Beijing with Tori Pena, Michelle Finn, Sara Treacy and Kerry O'Flaherty missing out on qualification in their respective events.
Pena happy overall with progress
Tori Pena (Finn Valley) finished 10th in Group A of the women's pole vault qualification with a best of 4.30m. Pena was hoping for more and felt she should have cleared 4.45m but was happy with her overall progress this year.
"I wanted a bit more," she said afterwards. "This year was definitely a building year for me. Last year was really rough, I struggled with injuries so I’m happy overall with the progress, but my training didn’t really show today.
"My calfs cramped up a bit two days ago and it took me a while to get warm today and it was too little, too late. I should have had 4.45m. I felt good and thought I had it on the third one. There’s work to be done and I need to get consistency at the bigger bars at these bigger meets. Training was the most positive part of this season but it hasn’t quite shown yet in the performance side of things.
"Championships haven’t really been my game, but today at 4.30m I thought this was how things are supposed to go, but it wasn’t there for me today. I need to get that consistency dialled in and get a bit more confidence."
Steeplechase trio battle hard in the heat
Michelle Finn (Leevale), Sara Treacy (Dunboyne) and Kerry O'Flaherty battled hard in the heats of the women's 3,000m steeplechase but were unable to advance to the final.
Michelle Finn was first up in heat 1 and she finished 9th in 9:55.27 in hot and humid conditions. "It was fun, it was cool to run here but I would have liked to have run faster," said Finn afterwards. "The conditions didn’t slow us down. I went out fast but I felt fine, when they went I was tired. It was hot but it wasn’t unbearable. The experience of being here will do a lot for me, because I let them go because I expected them to be ahead of me."
Sara Treacy was next up in heat 2 and was frustrated with her 13th place finish in 9:48.24. "It was hard, I’m not very happy with my race," said Treacy. "I’ve so much to improve on and I’m glad I got the experience, so I can only improve for next year. I’m raging, but there you go, it was my third quickest (time). It was solid enough but I know I’m capable of quicker. It’s annoying not to run a season’s best.
"I was hoping to run around 9:35, and you have to approach these things as if you’re going to make the final, because you’re not here for the trip, you’re here to perform. I’ve got to improve my general fitness and work on my hurdling technique and get into races where you hurdle in a bunch."
Kerry O'Flaherty rounded out the triumvirate finishing 13th in the third, and final, heat in 10:05.10. O'Flaherty struggled in the heat but the 34-year-old looked at the positives.
"I’m not happy with the time," admitted O'Flaherty. "I’d been running good times going in but with three to go I started to really overheat and struggled to get the leg turnover, and that was way slower today. I’m disappointed about the time but I’m delighted to be here, and hopefully on the road to Rio now it’s given me the chance to run against the best in the world and experience the call room and everything.
"I was finding it hard to spot the barriers in the group, was stuttering to be able to see the barrier. It was very warm out there, and with three laps to go I felt I was absolutely roasting, but the training camp in Hong Kong was ideal to get used to the heat and humidity. I’m not happy with that, but I’m not going to let today get me down. At the age of 34 a lot of people have written me off, but it’s been 10 years of hard work to get here, I‘ve always been knocking on the door with qualifying standards, and I’m only beginning my career, and fingers crossed everything goes well until Rio."