Derval O'Rourke runs 13.02 in Lignano, Italy

Last Tuesday evening at a meet in Lignano Italy, Derval O’Rourke finished second in the womens 100m hurdles in a seasons best time of 13.02 seconds.

100 m hurdles Wind: 0.2
1    Lolo Jones    USA    5 Aug 82 12.85
2    Derval O'Rourke    IRL    28 May 81 13.02 SB  
3    Yvette Lewis    USA    16 Mar 85  13.08
4    Micol Cattaneo    ITA    14 May 82 13.14
5    Veronica Borsi    ITA    13 Jun 87 13.40
6    Rikenette Steenkamp    RSA    16 Oct 92 13.93

Back on the 8th of July, Derval had to pull out of the National track and field championships due to a back spasm. The next day, the Irish Times had headlines like 'O'Rourke injury casts major doubt over Olympic participation'. At the times, that article seemed to be completely at odds with information elsewhere as outlined in an earlier post. Then just 9 days later, a seasons best of 13.02 shows that some elements of the press were way off the mark.

What's possibly more significant though is that the time is close to the sub 13 seconds that Derval will need to run to make a mark in London. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, she went out in the first round after running 13.22 seconds. The time of the slowest qualifier from those rounds was 12.98 seconds. Therefore, it stands to reason that she will probably have to go sub 13 to get through the first rounds in London.