By his own admission Thomas Barr doesn’t know how much longer he has left in this running game, but the 31-year-old Waterford man showed there was no tiring in fight or spirit when storming through to win his heat of the 400 metres hurdles on Sunday’s morning session of the European Championships in Rome.
Barr, still plenty fresh it appeared after collecting his European 4x400 mixed relay gold on Saturday afternoon, nailed first place in heat one of the 400m hurdles inside the Stadio Olimpico, brilliantly judging the final 50 meters to cross the line in a season’s best time of 49.31 seconds, which ranked him as the fastest of all the 12 qualifiers.
That completed another positive morning for the Irish team, Mark Smyth also progressing from his opening heat of the 200m after Nicola Tuthill again showed her rising star status by advancing to the final of the women’s hammer.
For Barr there were no ill effects from his gold medal relay exertions from Friday night, and he now heads into Monday’s semi-final brimful of confidence and with a final place now at the beckoning, six years after he won bronze on this European Championship stage in Berlin in 2018.
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For his partner and fellow 400m hurdler Kelly McGrory it wasn’t to be, however, as she bowed out in the first round despite producing a lifetime best of 57.10, just shy of making it through to the next round.
Smyth also produced a fine performance in the men’s 200m, clocking a season’s best time of 20.93 to book his place in Sunday evening’s semi-final as the final qualifier (8.35pm).
For the 20-year-old Tuthill from Kilkenny, there was a calm satisfaction in claiming her place in Monday’s hammer final (8.33pm), after an excellent series of throws to finish seventh, comfortably inside the top 12 qualifying places. Her best throw of the day came in her final attempt of 69.85m, having surpassed the 70m barrier for the first time last month.
Earlier on Sunday morning around the ancient streets of Rome, the men’s and women’s half-marathons took place, with Shona Heaslip running a season best of 1:12:19 (34th) and Emily Haggard-Kearney clocked 1:17:04 (64th) on the women’s front, after Hiko Tonosa ran 1:05:42 to finish 43rd in the men’s race.
Yemaneberhan Crippa and Pietro Riva served up another course of an Italian one-two as they won gold and silver in the men’s race. Crippa won in a new championship record of 1:01:03 before Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal from Norway finally won her European gold in the women’s half-marathon, also clocking a championship record of 1:08:09, 14 years after her first attempt.
Grovdal finished ninth over 5,000m back in Barcelona 2010, and has been on a gold medal quest ever since. She took bronze over 10,000m in Amsterdam 2016 and again in the 3,000m steeplechase in Berlin 2018.
Sunday’s evening session will see the women’s 400m trio of Rhasidat Adeleke, Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker go in search of a place in Monday’s medal decider (from 7.05pm Irish time).
Christopher O’Donnel will also be in 400m semi-final action when he takes to the track for the third time this week (7.38pm), with Smyth then making his second appearance of the day in the 200m semi-final (8.35pm).
All eyes will then turn to the women’s 1,500m final with Ciara Mageean and Sarah Healy going in search of European glory (9.40pm Irish time).
If both Mageean and Healy made qualifying for that European 1,500 metres final look relatively easy, Sunday night’s medal showdown is poised to be a far different sort of tussle.
Mageean already knows exactly what is required to battle on to the medal podium on this stage, the 32-year-old winning silver two years ago in Munich and bronze back in 2016. She also knows what it’s like to miss out, coming fourth in 2018 behind Britain’s Laura Muir. Her only ambition here goes without saying.
Muir is bypassing these championships, only Mageean still has a trio of British runners to beat, including Jemma Reekie, who won Mageean’s heat in 4:06.68 on Friday morning, certainly impressing with her 60-second last lap run from the front.
With her best of 3:55.87, Mageean is the fastest and most experienced of the finalists, and did all she needed to do in qualifying, cruising around that last lap to nail third in 4:06.81.
In both races, only the top six went through to the final, and part of the challenge for Mageean is to deal with that finishing speed of Reekie, the 26-year-old already winning 800m silver at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March, and recently winning an 800m in Stockholm in 1:57.79.
“I feel like I’m ready for whatever tactics unfold,” said Mageean, the Portaferry native also improving her 800m best last month to 1:58.81. “I’m a 3:55 runner, have just run a personal best over 800 metres, so I know the speed is in my legs.
“I feel like I’m coming into this championship as a favourite, which is something I’ve probably never been before, that comes with some added pressure, but not as much pressure as I put on myself ... And it would be an absolute dream to hear Amhrán na bhFiann blasting around that stadium.”
Healy qualified for Sunday’s final from the second heat for what is the 23-year-old’s first senior final. She endured a slightly less straightforward run, finishing fourth in 4:12.30, behind Agatha Guillemot from France, who took the win in 4:11.92. Healy narrowly avoided a clash of runners with 200m remaining, which took out two of the field. Britain’s Georgia Bell, who is Healy’s training partner, and Katie Snowden also qualified ahead of her in second and third.
“I’m really excited about that, it feels like there’s no pressure,” said Healy. “It’s only upside, so I’ll see what I can do.”
Irish schedule for Sunday evening session (Irish time)
19:05: Women’s 400m semi-finals: Rhasidat Adeleke, Sharlene Mawdsley, Sophie Becker.
19:38: Men’s 400m semi-finals: Christopher O’Donnell
20:35: Men’s 200m semi-finals: Mark Smyth
21:36: Women’s 1,500m final: Ciara Mageean, Sarah Healy.
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