Gregan, Ó Lionaird win heats in good opening session for Ireland in Gothenburg

A hugely positive opening morning session for Irish athletes at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg has seen Brian Gregan and Ciarán Ó Lionaird win their heats, with Derval O’Rourke progressing through also to tonight’s sprint hurdles semi-finals.

Gregan won his first-round heat of the 400m in 46.97 seconds, an ease-up on the line almost costing him, but he still finished first marginally in front of Ukrainian Vitaliy Butrym and Mamoudou Hanne of France.

The Clonliffe Harrier holds the fastest indoors time in Europe this year, set at Athlone IT’s AAI Games, and has had his chances improved with the withdrawal of Belgium’s Borlée brothers, who he beat recently in Gent.

Gregan put his slowing down in the final ten metres to there unusually not being a big screen head-on the final line which athletes can refer to: “I won’t do that again, I learned my lesson there.

“Indoors it’s a big trickier to see, you can’t turn around because you could fall over, and there’s no screen there (visible on the closing straight).

“The main thing was I got the win, so I’m happy.”

Ó Lionáird put his injury-ravaged 2012 season behind him by pouncing at the right time to win his 3000m semi-final , which at one stage was led for a couple of laps late on his Ireland colleague Stephen Scullion.

But as Scullion was burned off into eighth, the Leevale AC star – tenth in the 1500m at the Daegu World Championships 18 months ago - moved up the rankings in the final three laps, taking the lead with 300m to go.

“Good execution I think,” said Ó Lionaird, “I have a couple of Championships under my belt. I would be expecting to perform that way now at this stage. It would be disappointing if I didn’t execute.

“I was happy I was able to do the job and I’ve come away without any injuries - hopefully.”

His winning time of 7 minutes 55.12 seconds provides a major boost ahead of tomorrow evening’s final, where he was almost joined Scullion.

The North Belfast Harriers athlete was promoted to eighth in his semi-final following the disqualification of Spaniard Carlos Alonso, giving him a chance of a fastest-losers slot, but missed out by one second, and two places.

John Travers of Donore Harriers finished 11th in his semi-final in 8:23.83, but his major focus this year is on the European Under-23 Championships in Tampere, Finland in July.

Derval O’Rourke got the morning, and the Championships, off to a rousing start by finishing second in a toughly-stacked 60m hurdles first­round heat.

The 2006 world indoor champion finished second in her opener in 8.05 seconds, in a race taken by two-in-a-row European outdoor champion Nevin Yanit of Turkey.

2009 European indoor champion Eline Berings of Belgium was third, and if O’Rourke is to pull off a high finish, will have done it the hard way, with the semi-finals tonight at 5:20 Irish time, and the final at 6:55.

O’Rourke is seeking improvement: “It’s job done, but it’s not fast enough or good enough. It needs to be better.

“Yanit I felt was running pretty controlled, so it’s ok for now.”

Elsewhere in the evening session, Tori Peña of Finn Valley competes in pole vault qualifying, Claire Tarplee of DSD is in the 1500 semis, with 800 action taking in Ciara Everard and Rose Anne Galligan.