Ireland’s men and women’s 4 x 100m squads are through to the finals at the European U23 Championships in Tallin – and both set new Irish records on the their way.
First up were the women who ran 44.68 secs to finish second behind Germany in the opening heat. Germany were majestic winners in 43.62 secs and must be favourites for this evening’s final (16.35 Irish time). Making up the team were Sarah McCarthy, Cliodhna Manning, Sarah Lavin and Phil Healy in that order. Overall, the Irish women are fifth fastest of the eight qualifiers.
In the men’s 4 x 100m, the Irish quartet of Browning , Madden, Eliott and Lawler, running in the eighth lane, produced a slick performance with no mistakes to finish third in 40.11 secs. Both Czech Republic in the opening heat and France in the second ran identical times of 39.76 secs. Conditions – damp; grey skies – weren’t great, so faster times are possible.
At the World Student Games, there was disappointment for Kevin Batt who finished ninth in the men’s 5000m in 14:28.74. Running away with the race was defending champion Hayle Ibrahimov, an Ethiopian running for Azerbaijan, who led from the first lap. His time was 13:44.28; second was Morocco’s Zouhair Talbi in 14:02.06.
In the long jump, Adam McMullen finished tenth with a second-round jump of 7.61m (+1.0).Wind conditions were tricky to say the least – Russia’s Pavel Shalin was helped to his 8.29 m winning leap by a wind of +6.5! In second place another Russian Vasilli Kopeikin jumped 8.13m with the help of a +4.4m wind, while the wind gauge was reading +4.0 when South Africa’s Rudolph Pienaar jumped 7.98m for third.
“Tougher than I thought jumping back-to-back days and the conditions were tricky, but the experience has been amazing!’, he tweeted after.
No comments yet.