Round-Up From Day One Of The European Athletics U23 Championships

Thomas Barr (University of Limerick AC) continued his impressive run of form at the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea on Thursday, 9th of July. Barr romped to victory in the first semi-final of the 400m hurdles in a time of 49.75 seconds. The time was the quickest of all the qualifiers for the final with the next quickest coming from Abdelma Lahoulou of Algeria with a time of 49.83. The fast time and semi-final win for Barr means he is guaranteed a middle lane for the final which is scheduled to take place on Friday, 10th of July at 11am (IRL time).

UCD student Ciara Everard also secured her place in the world university final after a battling performance in the semi-finals of the 800m. Everard made a positive start to the race positioning herself behind the early leader Angela Petty of New Zealand. Petty continued to dominate winning the race in a time of 2.00.74 with Everard losing a bit of ground in the home straight to finish fifth in a time of 2.02.10.The time for the Kilkenny native was enough to qualify her for the final which takes place on Friday, 10th of July at 11.10am.

Cliodhna Manning and Phil Healy narrowly missed out on making the final of the women's 100m at the European U23 Athletics Championships in Tallinn this morning.
There were three heats in the women's 100m with the first two in each qualifying automatically to tomorrow's final along with two fastest losers. Manning (Kilkenny City Harriers) finished third in the first heat in 11.79 into a minus 1.8 headwind but unfortunately it wasn't good enough to progress. "I wanted to run a pb (11.71) and get another run but it was into a strong headwind," said Manning who finished 10th overall. Phil Healy (Bandon AC) finished fourth in the last heat in 11.81 and was reasonably pleased with her performance. "I've struggled the last few weeks so it's a good improvement." 11.77 seconds would have made the final.

Dempsey McGuigan (Finn Valley) finished 16th overall in the men's hammer qualification with a best of 65.09m.