Hession and O’Rourke are singing in the rain

THEY say it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good and yesterday, at the world championships in Helsinki, the wind and the weather in general helped Irish athletes achieve their targets in various ways.

Paul Hession made it through to the quarter finals of the men’s 200m assisted by a tail wind and then Derval O’Rourke, after last night’s programme had been delayed for two hours by a thunderstorm, produced the second best performance of her career for a place in the semi-finals of the women’s 100m hurdles.

It was one of those days. Early morning saw lengthy queues at the ticket booth ­ unprecedented for a morning session. Then came the wind that threw the qualification rounds of the men’s pole vault into turmoil, blew at more than two metres per second into the faces of the runners in the first heat of the 200m and then blew more than four metres per second on the backs of the runners down the finishing straight in Paul Hession’s heat.

The Athenry sprinter made the most of it and, while he finished last, his time was 20.40 seconds and he was one of four of the eight fastest losers to qualify from this heat, leaving some world class athletes struggling. Patrick Johnson from Australia, Tommi Harttonen from Finland, a Nigerian, Olusoji Fasuba, and Dominic Demeritte from the Bahamas eventually secured the remaining four places in the quarter finals.

Wind or no wind, this was a superb performance from Hession and it was the fastest ever wind-assisted run by an Irishman ­ Philip Snoddy once did 20.47 for 200m.

“Having looked at the heat, I knew it was going to be tight,” Hession said afterwards.

“But everything went just right for me and, at last, I had a bit of luck.

“I have had a difficult season and a tough week so I am thrilled to have made it through to the quarter finals of the world championships. Three weeks ago I did not think I would be here at all and I have had only five decent training sessions in the lead up to the event.

“But this is a quick track and then the wind, which had been swirling around the stadium, blew up at just the right time. I could feel myself being driven along. I was lucky and I was due a change of luck after past problems with lane draws and the like.”

The heat was won by the young American, Tyson Gay, in 19.99 secs with the Pole, Marcin Jedrusinksi, running a stormer to be second. Last night, Hession was due to compete in the quarter finals of the 200m, but they were postponed until this morning on account of the weather.

This time, however, the Lane draw went against him again. He gets Lane 1 in the first heat (11.45am) with another young American, Wallace Spearmon, in Lane 3, Tobias Unger, the German record holder in 5 and Patrick Johnson in 7.

Derval O’Rourke won’t be bothered about the opposition in her semi-final of the 100m hurdles. She was in a stacked first round heat last evening.

“So what? Those are the girls I have wanted to run against all year,” she beamed. “I came here to run against them.”

The 24-year-old Cork girl could hardly have been happier after running her second fastest legal time ever to finish sixth in 13.00 secs and get through to the semi-finals as the fourth fastest loser. That was after the thunderstorm had delayed the start of her heat by some two hours. The first heat was run into a two metre headwind while her heat, won by the defending champion, Perdita Felicien (Canada) in 12.77 secs was measured just 0.5 and produced two of the four fastest losers.

But O’Rourke had come through the trauma of the long delay. The only good thing about it was that she brought her rain spikes but, stuck inside, she was left without food and had not eaten since 2pm She did not bring her tracksuit bottoms and only had leggings to keep warm after the warm up.

Then they were told at 8pm it was 99% certain the race would be postponed until today but, at 8.20pm, they were told the heats would be resumed at 8.45pm (local time).

“It was a bit of a mess. I had just started to warm down,” she said. “I had to warm up again. Luckily I was friends with some of the girls.

“To be honest it was difficult. It was mental. Half my body was tired my calf muscles were getting a little bit tired. I just stood on the line and got it together. I wanted a place in the semi-finals so bad.”

She goes in Heat 3 of the semi-finals with the first two and two fastest losers to go through.