7th Place For Marcus Lawler At The European U23 Athletics Championships

Marcus Lawler battled to a seventh place finish in the final of the men's 200m in 20.94 seconds at the European U23 Athletics Championships in Tallinn.

The St Laurence O'Toole's athlete impressed in the semi-final earlier in the day to qualify for the final in 20.91 - the third fastest overall. His earlier exertions looked to take their toll in a final won by Karol Zalewski in 20.49. The Carlow athlete can take solace that he can run in these championships again in two years' time.

UCD's Mark English and Karl Griffin made sure there would be two Irish athletes in the men's 800m final with impressive runs in their respective semifinals. Griffin finished fourth in the first semi-final in 1:48.65 - it proved good enough to qualify as a fastest loser.

English was much improved from his heat and took automatic qualification in 1:49.94. "The race went pretty much as I thought it would," said English. "I'm pretty confident going into the final." Brandon Hargreaves (DSD) dug in for a 12th place finish in the men's 5,000m final in 14:14.76 won in a championship record by Turkey's Ali Kaya in 13:20.16
Sarah McCarthy (Mid Sutton) just missed out on making the long jump final finishing 15th overall in 6.10m - 6.19m would have made the final.

Adam McMullen continued the good form of the Irish athletes at the World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea. McMullen contesting the long jump qualification produced a 7.70m jump to qualify comfortable for the final with the fifth biggest jump of all the competitors. McMullen and team mate Kevin Batt (Adams State University) - 5,000m will compete in their respective finals tomorrow morning on the final day of the Games.