Heffernan and Boyce book Olympic tickets

RACEWALKERS Robert Heffernan and Brendan Boyce qualified for the 50km final at the London Olympics following tremendous displays at Namburg, Germany on Saturday.

Heffernan, who is also set to compete in the 20km at the 2012 Games, was second in 3:49.28 while Letterkenny man Boyce was sixth with a lifetime best of 3:57.58 — two seconds inside the standard. There was disappointment for Ireland’s third walker in the event, Colin Griffin (Ballinamore), who was disqualified two kilometres from the finish.

The race developed into a ferocious head to head between Heffernan and the veteran Spanish racewalker and former world champion Jesus Angel Garcia, who eventually claimed victory in 3:48:11.

“It went off at what I thought was an easy pace. I chased down the Polish guy who was leading and just when I caught him he dropped out. I eased up because it was not a championship and I knew Garcia was coming.

“From there on it was a game of cat and mouse between us. I had to make a pit stop and lost about 30 seconds but I caught him again. He put in a savage kilometre at about 46k and got away.”

Heffernan admitted that the sudden death of his mother last month had been hugely traumatic.

“I had no feeling for it. I was going through the motions. I will take a break now and then go to Australia to train.

“I am hoping to have Liam (O’Reilly) with me. He has been superb for me even before my mother passed away. I had injuries and he sorted them out. We made a plan and he took care of it because I was just more or less on autopilot.”