Ireland's David Gillick ran a season's best of 44.79 seconds at Barcelona's Olympic Stadium to qualify for the 400m final at the European Athletics Championships.

OLIVE LOUGHNANE gets the programme under way in the women’s 20k walk at 7.05am (Irish time) when she faces a field of just 23 in her quest to add a European Championship medal to her world championship medal and only Sonia O’Sullivan and Eamonn Coghlan have done that in outdoor competition before.

THE race may not have lived up to its billing but Ireland’s David Gillick won’t complain about that after finishing third behind the Olympic champion, LaShawn Merritt (USA) in the 400m at last night’s Super Grand Prix meeting in Monte Carlo.