Record start for Irish sprinters at Indoor Championships

Both Paul Hession and Anna Boyle have broken their Irish 60 metres records in their heats at the European Indoor Championships in Birmingham.

Hession, although given second place, posted the same time of 6.61 seconds as Great Britain's gold medal favourite Craig Pickering in the opening qualifier.

His performance bettered by two hundredths of a second the time he achieved in Vienna at the end of January.

Boyle smashed her 13-month-old Irish record by the same margin, finishing third in her heat in 7.30 secs.

"All last week we had a dry run of the event - early morning warm-up and then sprinting hard and it all worked out very well indeed," said Boyle. She was drawn in the same race a Katerina Thanou - a former champion making her return to international action after serving a two-year drug suspension.

The controversial Greek star comfortably won by one hundredth of a second in a time of 7.26 secs ahead of Austria's Bettina Muller-Weissina.

"The time was okay for an early morning start. I feel good and I'm looking forward to the rest of the competition," said Thanou.