McBrearty shines through gloom in City of Light
Apart from Derval O’Rourke’s campaign it had been a disappointing day for Irish athletes. That was until the Letterkenny man, who will be 20 on Tuesday, took his heat of the 800m by the scruff of the neck.
He set about dominating the race as soon as they broke lanes, took the field through the first 200m in 25.73 secs and 400m in 52.50 secs before conceding the lead at the bell.
Marcin Lewandowski (Poland) went on from there to win in 1:48.81 from Italy’s Mario Scapini (1:48.92) and David Bustos of Spain (1:49.04), with McBrearty fourth in 1:49.74. With none of the other heats run under 1:50 this race produced the two fastest losers – all thanks to the Donegal teenager.
“The plan was to go through (400m) 53 secs low, so 52.5 was a bit too fast for me,” he said. “I got pushed around on the last lap and that was a bit of inexperience on my part but I went out there to give it a go.
“My heat was probably the most difficult – Lewandowski is probably one of the favourites and David Bustos is a former European junior champion.
“I was hoping I would be in better shape here but I suffered an illness after winning in Vienna and I did not get a chance to sharpen up the way I wanted to. I was with the doctor the morning of the national championships.”
McBrearty is one of an exciting group of young athletes that includes his clubmate, Mark English, who holds the Irish junior 800m record and finished ahead of him twice this year.
Meanwhile, less than one-hundredth of a second deprived Marian Heffernan of a place in the semi-finals of the women’s 400m.
The lane one draw proved disastrous for the Cork woman and the athletes in the outside lanes were almost out of sight when Heffernan came off the first bend. But she went in pursuit and, in the end, failed by fractions to get a place in the semi-finals after finishing fifth in 54.94.
The three fastest losers were guaranteed a place in the semi-finals but she found herself tied for the third spot with Portugal’s Patricia Lopes, who eventually got through on thousandths of a second when the timing was reviewed.
“I felt coming off the first bend they got away from me,” she said. “On the third bend they were coming back to me and I just kept telling myself to keep working but they kept working too.”
Dan Mulhare from Portlaoise, made a promising debut in the men’s 3,000m heats. The 25-year-old civil engineer finished sixth in his heat in 8:04.57 missing out on qualification.
Brian Gregan was searching for reasons after he finished a disappointing fourth in his first-round heat of the men’s 400m in 47.63 secs.
“I don’t know what happened — I genuinely don’t know,” he said. “I ran a time that I could have run in my sleep."
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