Irish hurdler Thomas Barr breaks 50 seconds for the first time...

At the qualifying rounds of the 400m hurdles at the European U23 Track and Field Championships in Tampere, Finland, Thomas Barr finished in a time of 49.78 seconds, breaking the 50 second barrier for the first time ever. This probably shouldn't come as any great suprise as the 21 year old Ferrybank AC athlete ran 50.00 recently at the Cork City Sports despite making a heavy contact with the last hurdle.

While Thomas remains the second fastest Irish 400m hurdler of all time, it surely is only a matter of time before he sets a new national senior record especially as he is only five one hundredths of a second off the record of 49.73 seconds.

All time Irish 400m Hurdles
1 49.73 Tom McGuirk 03.02.71 5 San Jose USA 01.06.96
2 49.78 Thomas Barr 24.07.92 3 Tampere FIN 12.07.13
3 50.27 Jason Harvey 09.08.91 3 Oordegem BEL 01.06.13
4 50.76 Brian Liddy 16.06.77 7 Gothenburg SWE 30.07.99
5 51.11 Ciaran Dunphy 15.11.64 1 Dublin IRL 30.06.85
6 51.23 Antoine Burke 20.07.75 4 Leiria POR 18.06.05
7 51.24 Tim Crowe 10.12.91 2 Ostrava CZE 14.07.11
8 51.33 David Keoghan 09.10.78 2 Dublin IRL 25.07.99
9 51.41 Paul Byrne 18.04.90 4 Dublin IRL 07.08.11
10 51.45 Stephen McDonnell 24.07.80 1 Dublin IRL 14.07.02

As you can see from the stats above, Thomas Barr was just 3 years old when the Irish record was set by Tom McGuirk back in 1996.

Update...In the final on Saturday, Thomas ran 50.14 seconds and finished in 8th place.