DCU’s Gregan misses out in student test by fraction

DCU’s Brian Gregan put the finishing touch to a spectacular season when he set a new personal best of 45.96 seconds in the final of the men’s 400m at the World University Games in Shenzhen, China.

He finished fifth but was involved in a thrilling contest for third between three athletes as Australia’s Sean Rowe sneaked the bronze medal in 45.93 secs.

Victory went to 19-year-old Hungarian Marcel Deak Nagy, who won the European junior title a couple of weeks ago in Tallinn. A silver medallist at last year’s world junior championships, he got the measure of Peter Matthews (Jamaica) to assert his authority yesterday.

Gregan, silver medallist at last month’s European U23 championships, was bang in contention at the 200m mark but lost his position over the third 100m before going into overdrive in the home straight to peg back most of his rivals and get involved in that exciting finish.

“Getting under 46 seconds for the first time was an amazing performance,” his coach, John Shields said. “Two years ago in Belgrade 45.96 secs would have won the silver medal.”

Gregan, a European U23 silver medallist last month, said: “My initial reaction was disappointment. I’m disappointed because I thought I had a chance of a medal today. I almost did it. I was just .03 of a second from third place, that’s a very small margin. But this only makes me more determined.”

Ireland’s top high jumper, Kourosh Foroughi, finished equal ninth in the final in 2.18m. The title was won by Bogdan Bondarenko of the Ukraine with a jump of 2.28m, from Wojciech Theiner of Poland (2.26m) and Russia’s Sergey Mudrov (2.24m).

Amy Foster of UUJ advanced to the semi-finals of the 200m after finishing second in her heat in a new PB of 23.53 secs.

Temperatures soared to over 35 degrees in Shenzhen but that didn’t deter 20km race walkers Brendan Boyce and Micheál Doyle.

Boyce, from Donegal, finished in 89mins 48secs, which will give him a boost ahead of his attempt at Olympic qualification in the 50km next month. Meathman Doyle finished in 92:48.

In swimming, Ryan Harrison (University of Tennessee) finished fifth in 1:49.18 in the 200m freestyle final — one-hundredth of a second off the bronze medal position.

The women’s 4x100m medley relay team placed seventh overall after finishing in 4:13.48.

The men’s golf side showed improvement on their opening round at Mission Hills GC, bettering the previous day’s score by seven shots, with Kelan McDonagh (NUI Maynooth) showing an 11 shot improvement on level par.

For the women’s team, Lucy Simpson (NUI Maynooth) shot a seven-over-par round of 79.

Picture: UP AND OVER: DCU’s Kourosh Foroughi goes clear during the high jump competition in which he finished ninth. Picture: Cathal Noonan/INPHO