Forgotten Shinkinssaves Irish blushes
The 28-year-old DCH runner turned in the performance of her life to finish third in yesterday’s first round 400m heats and gain automatic qualification for this evening’s semi-finals.
Shinkins was quick out of the blocks, fast around the first bend and controlled up the back stretch. She overtook the athletes outside of her off that first bend and when Kaltouma Nadjina from Chad attacked her from lane 5 in the finishing straight she had plenty in hand to hold her off.
“It was top three to qualify and there were a couple of girls in the race who had beaten me this year so I knew it was going to be between a couple of us for the top three spots,” she said afterwards.
“It was such a relief to be safely through in the top three rather than be waiting around for fastest losers.”
She was putting recent disappointments well and truly behind her in this race. Her form dipped in advance of recent championship events but she ran the second fastest time of her career early in the season and was able to build on it in the lead up to Helsinki.
Her heat was won by American DeeDee Trotter in 51.44 secs from Christine Ohorougu (Great Britian), 51.76, with Shinkins third in 51.82 and the next two, Kaltouma Nadjina and Olicimar Teodoro (Brazil) going through as fastest losers.
She’s the only Irish athlete in action today when she goes in the semi-finals, with the first two in each of three heats to go through along with the two fastest losers making it a difficult proposition.
She has drawn Lane 8 in the third semi-final (7pm Irish time) and while it is not the perfect draw it is better than Lanes 1 or 2, which have gone to Lucimar Teodoro (Brazil) and Ilona Usovich (Belarus).
She is a bit unfortunate to be pitted against two of three women who have dominated this event over the past three seasons, Ana Guevara (Mexico), the defending champion, and Tonique Williams-Darling (Bahamas), the reigning Olympic champion, who are in Lanes 3 and 4 with the Russian, Olsya Zykina, in Lane 5.
James Nolan made a supreme effort in his bid to make the semi-finals of the men’s 1,500. He finished a disappointing 11th in 3:42.53 but his gallant effort merited more support from the faster runners in the field.
With the other two heats already decided, everyone knew exactly what they had to do to qualify but only Nolan, who thought he had the support of South African Johan Cronje following a discussion before the race, did anything about it, taking the lead after just 100m and carrying the race until the reluctant Spaniard, Reyes Estevez, took over.
Afterwards he defended his tactics, insisting that a real pace was the only way that he could get through.
“I was the second slowest in the race. It was the last heat. Most of the guys in there have run 3:30-3:32 so why not take it on and everybody would go through,” he said.
“At least I gave it a go. I would not criticise my tactics against athletes of that calibre. I have to give myself a chance to get up there. I planned to lead it for 400m, pull aside and Johan Cronje was supposed to come in for the second lap but never did. I was tying up over the last 100m, then the American came up on the inside and clobbered me. Your rhythm is bad enough without somebody hitting you.
“Lads in my heat will be doing the same as me this evening having their dinner and going to bed instead of preparing for a semi-final whereas if we all chipped in and did a bit  there were nine fastest losers - everybody in the race could have gone through.”
Roisin McGettigan finished ninth in her heat of the inaugural women’s 3,000m steeplechase in 9:56.31 but this was her first major championship and she intends to build on the experience.
Marie Davenport, suffering from a recurrence of the allergies that have plagued her every time she comes to Europe for a championship event, dropped out of the women’s 10,000m.
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