Battling Barr misses out on European final
A season’s best performance wasn’t quite enough for Thomas Barr (Ferrybank) to make the final of the men’s 400m hurdles at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam (July 7).
Barr ran 50.09 to finish fifth in the third semi-final and there were plenty of positives for the Waterford man who just returned to full training a number of weeks ago.
“I’ll take a lot of positives from this,” said Barr. “It was good to get into championship mode which you don’t experience anywhere else. The Olympics will be no different just on a bigger stage.”
Brian Gregan (Clonliffe Harriers) was next on track in the first semi-final of the men’s 400m where he put in a brave performance to finish seventh from lane one in 46.37 seconds.
“It was my fastest ever out of lane 1 so it was okay,” said Gregan. “Obviously I would to have liked to have gone faster but I’m coming around and my focus is fully on the relay now.”
Sinead Denny (DSD) produced a similarly gutsy performance from lane 1 in the semi-finals of the women’s 400m. Denny clocked 53.27 seconds to finish 8th in the third semi-final – just one hundredth of a second outside her personal best.
“I would have liked to have gone a little bit faster but I’ve got to be pleased with my first major championships,” said Denny afterwards. “My goal was to make it to the semi-final and run a pb. I was just outside that but it’s made me hungry for more.”
Eoin Everard (Kilkenny City Harriers) rounded out the Irish action for the evening session of day 2 of the European Athletics Championships. The Kilkenny man finished 11th in the first heat of the men’s 1500m in 3:45.46.
Ben Reynolds (North Down) gets Irish action underway tomorrow at 11:55 Irish time in the men’s 110m hurdles heats. Sara Treacy (Dunboyne), Kerry O’Flaherty (Newcastle) and Michelle Finn (Leevale) compete in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase at 12:30 with Christine McMahon (Ballymena & Antrim) in the heats of the 400m hurdles at 13:15. In the evening Ciara Mageean (UCD) competes in the women’s 1500m heats at 17:15 with Marcus Lawler (SLOT) in the men’s 200m semi-final at 17:50 and Amy Foster (City of Lisburn) at 18:15 in the semi-finals of the women’s 100m.
For the morning report click HERE
For the timetable of the Irish click HERE
For the statistics of the Irish at the European Championships click HERE
