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

Ireland will have two top class junior athletes running for medals on the final day of the 21st European Junior Championships in the Estonian capital of Tallinn tomorrow.

The highly talented Ciara Mageean (City of Lisburn AC) was already in the final of the women's 1,500m when the heats of her event became a straight final earlier in the week, but today Tomas Barr (Ferrybank AC) again underlined his rich potential when he also qualified for the final of the men's 400 m hurdles tomorrow.

It also looked at first as if Mark English (Letterkenny AC) had made it three Irish athletes in three finals tomorrow when English was initially placed 2nd in his semi-final of the 800m, but that result was later corrected and unfortunately the exciting young Donegal athlete was then given fourth position, in a time of 1:50.77, one hundredth of a second slower than his original time, but the same as the 3rd place athlete Kilic from Turkey, who progressed to the final nonetheless.
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As 4th place finisher, English was therefore was eliminated from the final line-up and had no chance of surviving as a fastest loser, as the second semi-final was much faster.
This will a big disappointment to reigning Irish senior Indoor Champion over 800m, but English has the temperament and the talent to move on from this difficult experience.

This afternoon, 18 year old Barr produced another phenomenal effort to smash the 400m hurdles Irish junior record of 51.29, which Barr himself set only yesterday in the heat here in Tallinn, when he clocked a marvellous 50.74 seconds, the equal second fastest time ever by an Irishman, and not far behind the Irish senior record of Tom McGuirk's 49.73.

At first the photo finish indicated that Barr had also won his semi, but this was subsequently updated, and Barr was then given the same time as the Belgian Stef Vanhaeren, who was upgraded to 'first'.

Tomorrow's final is a now mouth-watering prospect where six of the eight finalists now have times under 51 seconds.

Barr's improvement at these championships has been exceptional. He went to Tallinn with a best of 52.45, but the Ferrybank athlete will now have the potent confidence and the fitness to be in with a real chance of making it on to the rostrum later tomorrow, where the first semi-final winner Varg Konigsmark of Germany (50.61) looks like the man to beat on paper.

Marco Pons (Ferrybank AC) was in action in the Discus qualification this morning in Tallinn. Pons had been in good form this season throwing 55.56m, but unfortunately he was unable to match that in the challenging conditions in Estonia. Throwing 51.58m for 9th in Group A, Pons was eliminated, but would have progressed had the young Waterford man been able to reproduce his best season.