Hession through to 200m quarters

Irish sprinting star Paul Hession has qualified for this evening's quarter-final rounds of the 200 metres at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, having finished second in his heat.

Hession, a semi-finalist at last year's Olympics, came home strongly to finish just behind Jamaica's Steve Mullings, the fastest man on the blocks in the third of this morning's nine heats.

He got off to a solid start in lane six but a poor transition through the bend left him trailing leader Mullings and France's David Alerte and Kenji Fujimitsu of Japan.

With only three automatic qualifiers, the Athenry ace has some work to do down the home straight.

But a strong burst in the final 50 metres saw him close the gap and qualify comfortably in second with a time of 20.66.

Mullings took the win in 20.62, with Fujimitsu (20.69) the other automatic qualifier.

Hession will almost certainly have to go close to his season's best of 20.40 to make it through the second round, which gets underway at the Olympiastadion at 5.55pm Irish time.

Meanwhile Dundrum South Dublin’s Deirdre Ryan has just begun her championships in the qualification of the high jump.

Ryan’s clubmate David Gillick will take to the track just after 10am in the heats of the 400m.