For Bandon bullet Phil Healy, the stakes have never been higher

Ireland’s Phil Healy celebrates winning the heat

To win a medal, it will require Phil Healy to go somewhere she has never been. Quite simply, it will require the 26-year-old to run the race of her life.

Looking at the line-up for this evening’s European Indoor 400m final in Torun, Poland, it seems clear which way the race will play out over the first lap, but it’s anyone’s guess what will go down thereafter.

The favourite, by a distance, is drawn in the outside lane, which is a huge advantage in indoor running due to the net downhill over the first lap, a bias so strong that it caused authorities to scrap the 200m at major championships many years ago.

It’s where we’ll find Dutch star Femke Bol, who is touted as one of the next big stars of European athletics, and the time seems ripe for the 21-year-old to display her champion credentials in Torun tonight and stamp her supremacy over more senior rivals. Bol has broken the Dutch record four times this year, her 50.64 at her national championships a fortnight ago a time no one else in the field will be able to live with if she repeats it tonight.

And the signs are that she will. Unlike others, Bol doesn’t like to go too crazy over the first lap, but rather coast to halfway outside 24 seconds and then mow down her rivals over the second lap with that long, elegant stride that offers the illusion of being effortless.

Barring any disaster, she should take gold with relative ease.

But – and this is a big but – there is no event in athletics so set up for disaster, for unpredictable mid-race carnage, as the indoor 400m. There’s no event where athletes are slammed together with such force, breaking as they do from lanes after the first lap and throwing up a kill-or-be-killed funnel effect as they head into the third bend.

For Healy, the key will be to utilise her ample 200m speed over the first lap to enable a good position at the bell but to leave enough in reserve for the last 50 metres, when the minor medals will be decided.

Poland’s Justyna-Swiety Ersetic, much like Bol, prefers to run a steadier first half and comes chugging towards the front over the second lap, and after a personal best of 51.34 in the semi-final, it seems she has a lock on silver barring any mishap.

But the key to the race, for everyone, will hinge on what Lieke Klaver of the Netherlands chooses to do over the first 200m. The 22-year-old set a Dutch indoor 200m record of 23.10 earlier this year and clocked 51.21 for 400m recently – which makes her the second quickest in the race – but her form has tapered off in recent weeks and she looked a tired athlete when finishing second in her semi-final in 52.09.

To date, Klaver has known only one way to run the 400m: charging through the first lap with reckless abandon, clocking under 24 seconds at the bell, and then hanging on for dear life. Drawn in lane three, one lane inside Healy, she will know the only chance she has is to revert to type and set off like a bat out of hell to get to the break in front.

The question is whether Healy will go with her, and try to go into the second lap in second place, or whether she holds something in reserve, gets to the break in fourth, and then tries to pick up the pieces in the battle for bronze if or when Klaver starts to fall apart in the final 100m.

Britain’s Jodie Williams looks to be a huge threat in the battle for bronze, and though she’s the quickest in the field over 200m the inside lane will mean she will have to bide her time and try to come from behind in the last 50m. Then there is Romania’s Andrea Miklos, who Healy edged in the semi-final by the width of her vest, who will again be coming from behind and trying to hunt down bronze.

There will be precious little in it in the race for the third podium position, and any one of four athletes could win it. More than likely, it will go to whoever handles the occasion with the most composure, whoever manages their energy with the ultimate precision, whoever can find the path of least resistance through the first 300m, and whoever can keep their head, hold their form, when all around are losing theirs in the home straight.

It might be Healy. It might not. But the fact she’s in the conversation shows just how far she’s come. And now she’s got one small step, one giant leap, left to go.

Irish in action (all times Irish) Women’s 800m semi-finals: Nadia Power (6pm); Men’s 800m semi-finals: Mark English, Cian McPhillips (6:25pm); Women’s 400m final: Phil Healy (7:25pm)