Sheehy denied semi-final spot

The Republic of Ireland’s Ciara Sheehy ran a season’s best but missed out on a place in the 200 metres semi-finals at the European Indoor Championships in unusual circumstances.

She clocked 23.73 seconds to finish third in her heat, with the 14-times Irish champion well adrift of race winner Ivet Lalova, who was timed at 23.21secs.

Although Sheehy finished 10th quickest of all, with 10 to qualify, each heat winner was guaranteed a place in the semi-finals, and an extraordinary situation in the first race undid her chances.

Romanian Angela Morosanu won the second heat after her two fellow competitors in the three-woman race were both disqualified for false starts.

That meant the Balkan indoor champion had to go it alone on her one lap of the Spanish track, and she ran 23.79seconds.

There has been considerable criticism of the three-year-old regulation which allows only one false start in sprint races, then automatic disqualification for further offenders.

Ironically it was Morosanu, who made the permissible error of judgement before Yuliya Gushchina of Russia and then Belarussian Natalya Sologub were ‘red-carded’.

The quickest time of the session was posted by Karin Mayr-Krifka, the silver medallist three years ago.

Austria’s two-time world indoor bronze-medallist clocked 23.20secs to finish one hundredth of a second faster than Lalova, Bulgaria’s 20-year-old Olympic 100m and 200m finalist.

Chris Lambert showed he is a genuine gold medal threat in winning his 200m heat in a personal best time.

It was not an easy victory for Lambert, who was challenged strongly by Paul Hession before accelerating ahead of the Irishman in the final 20 metres.

“I’ve been slowly fetching my PB down this season,” said Lambert, who struck 0.11sec off his previous fastest with a time of 20.77secs.

More importantly, being the quickest man in the qualifying rounds, assured the British number one of a good lane draw for tonight’s semi-finals in the tight bended arena.

Hession, the 2003 World Student Games silver-medallist who got the better of his British rival at the recent AAA Championships, also made progress.

His time of 20.80sec was not only the second fastest of the heats, but also a healthy improvement on his previous fastest of 21.01sec.

Tim Abeyie also went through, producing the fastest 200m of his life when striking 0.06sec from his PB with a time of 20.92sec.

Abeyie mentored by Linford Christie, held-off a strong challenge in the home straight to fight off the challenge of the Czech Republic’s Jiri Vojtik by one hundredth of a second.

Defending champion Marcin Urbas looked very comfortable when matching his 2005 best with a winning time of 20.87sec.

The Pole’s heat saw Paul Brizzel fail to make the semi-finals. The Irish indoor record holder finished third in 21.27sec.

There was gloom for German medal hopeful Sebastian Ernst – Europe’s second fastest this year – who won his heat in 20.85sec but was then disqualified for running out of his lane.

Despite equalling his season’s best of two metres 27 centimetres, Ben Challenger failed to make the high jump final.

“It’s getting better,” said Challenger – although for the third successive Championships since his debut seven years ago, he failed to make the final.

Eight jumpers led by Russia’s Yaroslav Rybakov – the world’s leading performer this year – achieved the automatic qualifying standard of 2.30m.