Walsh leads Irish charge on day 2

Michaela Walsh (Swinford) affirmed her status qualifying for the shot put and hammer finals on a busy second morning for the Irish at the European U20 Athletics Championships in Grosseto, Italy (July 21).

Walsh was first up in the shot put where she qualified with a best of 15.39m and then had a swift walk across to the track to the hammer cage.

A bag of ice was needed to cool down and after a few shaky practice throws, Walsh was imperious gaining automatic qualification with her first throw in the hammer with 62.33m.

In the 100m hurdles Molly Scott (SLOT) recorded a personal best of 14.07 seconds to finish third in her heat and qualify for the semi-final.

Nadia Power (Templeogue) was also on pb form in the 1500m heats with 4:22.82 to make the final. It wasn’t all plain sailing though with Power passed on the line for automatic qualification but ultimately it was enough to make it through as a fastest qualifier.  Jodie McCann (DSD) struggled to clear an illness and clocked 4:50.37 while Emma O’Brien (Sli Cualann) was also run out of the final with 4:29.34.

Sean Roth (DSD) had a best of 4.70m in the pole vault qualification which wasn’t enough to advance

Conall Hayes 7th in his 800 heat in 1:53.38 and missed out on advancing to the semi-finals by two hundredths of a second. There was no doubting John Fitzsimons (Kildare) though clocking 1:54.44 for third and automatic qualification.

Arlene Crossan (Finn Valley) didn’t advance in the 400m hurdles heats with a best of 63.22 seconds.

The busy heptathlon duo of Elizabeth Morland (Cushinstown) and Kate O’Connor (St Gerard’s Dundalk) were back in action in the long jump. Morland recorded a new personal best with 6.01m while O’Connor had a best of 5.75m.

They have the javelin and 800m to come with both lying in excellent top 10 positions – Morland is 6th on 4,291 points and O'Connor 9th with 4,147 points.

You can watch more athlete interviews on the Athletics Ireland Facebook page HERE