Athletics: Brian Gregan missed on a medal at the European Championships in Helsinki this evening after tying up with a groin injury over the last 50 metres of the of the 400m final.
The 22-year-old was third fastest in the semi-finals and was rewarded with lane five for the final, but his exertions in the previous rounds clearly took their toll as he slipped from third to sixth in the dying stages and finished in a time of 46.04.
Yannick Fonsat of France, Israel's Donald Sanford and Briton Richard Buck all overtook him on the home stretch, while the race was won by Czech Pavel Maslak in a time of 45.24 ahead of Marcell Deak-Nagy (45.52).
“After 80 metres my groin went into spasm,” said a disappointed Gregan afterwards. “I couldn’t get going.”
He added: “I should have got bronze, no doubt about it, but I’ll get another chance.”
The injury, however, cast serious doubt on his ability to compete for Ireland in tomorrow's 4x400m relay.
Earlier this evening,
Paul Hession
made the 200m final after a lane infringement went the way of the Irish team for once.
The Athenry sprinter finished fifth in the second semi-final and just one hundredth of a second out of a fastest qualifying place before Greek athlete Likourgos-Stefanos Tsakonas, who won the race, was adjudged to have stepped into his outside lane.
Hession, who ran a personal best of 20.75 this morning to qualify for the semis, was therefore installed as one of the fastest losers.
The Irish team ran afoul of the tight lanes at the Olympic stadium as recently as this morning, when
Steven Colvert
was disqualified after his 200m qualifier.
The 20-year-old Crusaders runner was in line to take one of the four fastest qualifier spots after finishing fifth in heat three. The judges, though, ruled that he had stepped into the left lane and he joined the long list of disqualifications at the Championships.
“A sub par performance,” said Colvert candidly afterwards. “I really have no clue what went wrong. The bends are a bit tight, but they are tight for everyone.”
In his heat, Hession ran very wide approaching the straight from lane seven, and even stepped into the vacant outside lane, for which there is no penalty. The 29-year-old finished second to Tsakonas in that race and was well behind the Greek in the semi-final before the stewards’ intervention.
Jessie Barr’s
hugely successful debut at a senior championships ended with an eighth-place finish in the 400m hurdles this evening
The 24-year-old was not expected to finish in the medals, having exceeded pre-championships predictions by just getting there at this stage of her development, but she could not hide her disappointment after running 56.83 in the showpiece this evening.
“That couldn’t have gone worse if I tried,” she told RTÉ. “I ran well, the first 150 (metres) were okay, (but) I tried something new, stride-pattern wise, and it went to crap basically.
She added: “I made the final but I just wish I did myself justice in the final. That time should have been a lot faster but I’ll get over it. Tomorrow I’ll be fine.”
The pace of the race was the quickest in the world this year, with the top three setting personal bests and Russian winner Irina Davydova setting the fastest time of 2012 with a 53.77.
Earlier this afternoon,
Amy Foster
narrowly missed out on qualification for this evening's 200m semi-finals when finishing with 24.04.