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.