Mageean shows her class to advance to semi final

Close

High Performance

Mageean shows her class to advance to semi final

13 August 2016

You're viewing an article from our old website. While we've made efforts to retain all news from past Athletics Ireland websites, this article was created based on the old site's capabilities, so there may be formatting or layout issues on this page.

Mageean shows her class to advance to semi-final

Ciara Mageean (UCD) showed her class to advance to the semi-finals of the women’s 1500m finishing second in her heat in 4:11.51 on day 1 of the athletics at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Mageean cut a focused and determined figure afterwards in a race won by Ethiopia’s gold medal favourite Genzebe Dibaba in 4:10.61. “If I didn’t think I’d qualify, I wouldn’t be here,” answered Mageean on qualifying for the semi-finals which take place on day 3 (August 13) at 21:30 Brazil time/1:30am Irish time.

The Portaferry woman was pleased with her performance and also drew inspiration from the silver medal-winning rowing brothers Paul and Gary O'Donovan. “It was great to see them medal and gives more motivation to perform at this level. I ran my own race and I just need to stay focused for the semi-finals.”