An indication of the improving standard of Irish sprinting came yesterday in the form of two national relay records.
After John McAdorey, Gary Ryan, Tom Comyns and Paul Brizzel had combined to set a new best of 39.26 seconds in the heats of the men's 4x100 metres championship, the record book had to be rewritten for a second time during the preliminaries of the women's 4x400 metres relay.
However, in neither instance was it good enough to qualify the Ireland teams for the second round.
In the case of the women's team of Karen Shinkins, Martina McCarthy, Emily Maher and Ciara Sheehy, the improvement on the existing record was three fifths of a second as they finished in sixth place in three minutes 32.24 seconds.
That was down in the first instance to a brilliant first leg by Shinkins who took the Irish into second place at the end of the first leg.
But a sloppy change of the baton to McCarthy cost them two places, and with Maher unable to make up any ground on the third lap, Sheehy was left with a hopeless task on the anchor leg.
The performance of the men took two tenths of a second off the existing record, and at one point looked likely to give them a place in the second round. But the defending 4x100m champions, Canada, with an identical time, were given the last of the 16 qualifying places.
Jamie Costin from Waterford finished 38th in the men's 50 kilometre walk. His time of four hours 24 minutes and 22 seconds left him second last, but he so emptied himself of strength in the gruelling conditions that subsequently he received medical attention for almost an hour.
The race was won in 3:42.22 by Robert Korzeniowski of Poland. Earlier in the week he had captured the 20 kilometres championship.
Sailing: Burrows moves up
Ireland's Finn sailor, David Burrows, gained his second first place with a win in race eight yesterday. Burrows followed this up with a sixth place in race nine to bring him up to ninth place overall. After such a superb performance, Burrows keeps his chances alive for a top-five finish.
Star crew Mark Mansfield and David O'Brien had a great start to their day gaining a third place in race nine. Britain's Ian Walker and Mark Covell will race Atlanta gold medallist Torben Grael from Brazil and Mark Reynolds from the USA for the gold in the event's final race. In the Europe fleet, Britain's Shirley Robertson took gold while Ireland's Maria Coleman finished outside the top 10.
