Athletics

Peter Coghlan left the Olympic Stadium with his honour intact yesterday after another chastening reminder of the gulf separating many of our track and field athletes from top international standards, writes Peter Byrne.

After qualifying for the second round of the 110 metres hurdles as one of the fastest losers in 14.03 seconds, Coghlan progressed to a seasonal best of 13.86 later in the day, but it still brought him only seventh place of eight in a race won by Colin Jackson in 13.27. "Overall, I'm disappointed with the way I performed here," Coghlan said. "But at least I went down battling in the second round."

There was no silver lining to the elimination of our two 400 metres hurdlers, Tom McGuirk and Susan Smith-Walsh, on their farewell appearances in international competition.

McGuirk clocked 51.73 seconds and was seventh of eight in the fourth heat, won by the Czech Jiri Muzik in 50.11.

"It just didn't happen for me out there," said the man from San Francisco, who qualifies for Ireland through his father. "I knew from an early stage that I was struggling. I'd like to have finished on a better note, but I'm grateful for the chance of representing Ireland."

On a wet, wintry evening, Smith-Walsh's run matched the bleak setting, and she could finish only fourth in her preliminary race in 57.08.

The signs of distress were early in evidence when she hit the first and second hurdles, and after that her stride pattern deteriorated to the point where her cause was already lost coming out of the last bend. "It was just a bad race for me," she conceded. "It's hard to accept a performance like that when you put so much into the preparation, but now it's time to move on. I'd like to have finished on a better note but it just wasn't to be."

In the discus, hopes that Nick Sweeney could produce a big throw nearing the end of a fine career went unfulfilled in the qualifying round. He was eventually placed 18th in his group with 57.37 metres the best of his three throws. John Menton finished 20th in the second qualifying group with 54.21.

Sailing

Mark Mansfield and David O'Brien could hardly have imagined a worse performance at any stage of their time together, not least at the Olympics. A 15th and a 12th on Saturday left them languishing at the bottom of their 16-boat Star class.

Two results can be discarded, so a recovery is still possible. A change to cooler conditions at Sydney over the weekend may also lead to a more settled breeze and improved results.

Mansfield attributed the result to poor boatspeed in the opening race and while this was corrected for race two, choosing the wrong side of a windshift didn't produce significantly better result.

With nine races still to complete, Mansfield and O'Brien can look at their record over the last 10 months for inspiration.

In the Finn class, David Burrows would appear to have a tougher battle to improve on his 14th overall placing after day one. A ninth and a 16th were below expectations for the Malahide single-hander who was third in the Finn Europeans less than six months ago.

Seventh-placed Maria Coleman competes in the Europe fleet tomorrow after a two-day rest.

Rowing

The Irish lightweight coxless four finished fifth in their B final on Saturday, ranking them 11th in the world. Canada won in 6.04.31, with the Irish, who clocked 6.09.34, just failing to pass the crew from the Russian Federation to take 10th overall. France won an exciting A final from Australia and reigning champions Denmark.