Here we go again. One year out from the Tokyo Olympics, and for Thomas Barr this is when the clock truly starts ticking.

Thomas Barr is through to tomorrow night’s semi-finals of the men’s 400m hurdles at the World Athletics Championships in London.

It was the hope that killed him. At the end of the most important race of his life, Thomas Barr leaned for the line with every fibre of his being, hoping but not knowing whether it was enough for a medal in the men’s 400m hurdles yesterday afternoon.

Fortune favours the brave and Thomas Barr has bravery in bucketloads, writes Derval O’Rourke.

Thomas Barr produced a time just six-hundredths of a second outside his Irish record, but still bowed out of the men’s 400m hurdles at the semi-final stage at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing.