New National Junior Record for Thomas Barr over 400m Hurdles @ 21st European Junior Athletics Championships, Estonia

Thomas Barr, the 18 year Waterford athlete, was in record breaking form at the European Junior Championships in Estonia today.

The young Ferrybank AC hurdler made his mark when he won his heat of the event in a time of 51.29 seconds, which was not only a personal best by more than a full second, but also a new Irish junior record for this most challenging of 'sprint' events, in which arguably Ireland has had not had a lot of success in major championships in recent years.

The old mark of 51.53 was held by Pat Maher of Leevale AC, but Barr was in brilliant form today and dominated his heat in the closing stages when he moved away from the Italian Jose Bencosme de Leon to win by a clear stride or more.

Barr's time of 51.29 was also the fastest time of all 16 qualifiers for tomorrow's semi-finals of the event, and with a favoured lane five draw the Waterford talent is in with a real chance of making Sunday's final.

It would of course be wrong to suggest that Ireland has never won any medals over the 400m hurdles, but one must go back 79 years for it, and that was in 1932, when a certain Bob Tisdall won the Olympic title for Ireland in Los Angeles.

Ireland's Joanna Mills (Ballymena & Antrim AC) had done very well to make the final of the women's 400m metres this afternoon having run a new PB yesterday of 53.89. But hopes of another big run from Mills might have a big ask so soon after her performance yesterday. In the final today Mills finished a worthy 5th place though in 54.35 seconds, and Kate Kirk, running for Britain & Northern Ireland, was just behind Mills in 6th in a time of 54.36.

Mark English (Letterkenny AC) the Irish Senior Indoor Champion over 800m last February, ran with confidence and poise in his heat of the 800 metres this morning, comfortably qualifying for the semi-finals today with a third place finish in 1:51.15.

With this run behind him, English, who has a best of 1:48.96, will feel that he can progress to the final on Sunday from his semi-final tomorrow and challenge for a medal. In his heat today English looked in control and came into the home straight full of running and did not see any necessity of using up anymore energy as his place in the next round was assured.

The other Irish challenger in this event, Dean Cronin (Blarney Inniscarra AC) finished 7th in heat 3 in 1:53.43, and unfortunately will not progress to the next round. This will be a disappointment to Cronin as he has run 1:50.10 this season so far, and on paper was capable of going on.

Talented young Irish woman hammer thrower Cara Kennedy (Ferrybank AC) gave it 100% in the qualification round this morning, but didn't progress to the final. Kennedy finished 19th overall in the qualification with a throw of 56.24 metres, just outside her best throw this season of 58.26m.