Irish title dreams end early in Valencia
With all the leading hopes, including the defending 60m hurdles champion, Derval O’Rourke, absent it was always going to be difficult to make any impression. Ailish McSweeney, however, had a promising start to her campaign when she gained automatic qualification for last evening’s semi-finals.
The Leevale athlete had the fastest reaction time in her heat and finished fourth in a time of 7.43secs and her placing got her through to the semi-finals among the automatic qualifiers.
Things did not go so well for her in the semi-final and she had to be content with seventh place in 7.46secs, which was disappointing but she will look back on the experience as the start of something big after a couple of seasons fraught with frustration.
Both her heat and semi-final were won by Ene Franca Idoko, joint world leader with Angela Williams (USA), who was bidding to become the first Nigerian to win the title.
Indoko finished seventh in the final (7.30secs) as Williams sprinted to the title in 7.06 secs, the fastest time in the world this year. The silver medal went to Jeanette Kwyakye of Great Britain who set a national record at 7.13secs in the semi-finals and broke it again with a 7.08 sec run in the final with Tanesia Harrigan of British Virgin Islands taking bronze in 7.09secs.
James Nolan positioned himself perfectly in the first of the 1,500m heats and when he was displaced burrowed his way back up into sixth position but that was as far as he got, as Deresse Mekonnen (Ethiopia) stretched the field to the limits.
The Clonliffe Harrier held on to sixth on the line in 3:42.12 but was never going to make it through, even among the fastest losers.
James McIlroy, who wore the Irish vest at one time when he made an 800m final at the European championships in Budapest, failed to finish his first round heat which was won by Daniel Kipchirchir Komen.
Rashid Ramsi, who scored a rare 800m/1,500m double at the world outdoor championships in Helsinki three years ago, got through in a flying finish to the third heat which featured the other Mekonnen, Gebredhi, while Michael East was edged out of a place among the fastest losers.
