Irish delight as Hession and Derval power to semi-finals

PAUL HESSION and Derval O’Rourke delivered the perfect ending to an exciting day for Irish athletics at the world championships in Berlin when they both qualified for today’s semi-finals of their respective events.

Earlier in the day David Gillick had earned automatic qualification for the semi-final of the 400m and Hession and O’Rourke took the same route.

Hession, a semi-finalist at the Beijing Olympics last year, finished third behind Steve Mullings (Jamaica) and Ramil Guliyev (Azerbaijan) in last night’s quarter-final of the 200m.