Thomas Barr closes off season with another sub 50s 400m hurdle race in Zurich

Following his spectacular 4th place finish in the 400m hurdles Olympic final, Thomas Barr finished off his season on Thursday night with another sub 50 second time at a Diamond League competition in Zurich.

1 USA CLEMENT, Kerron 48.72
2 PUR CULSON, Javier 48.79
3 RSA VAN ZYL, Lj 48.80
4 EST MÄGI, Rasmus 48.90
5 SUI HUSSEIN, Kariem 49.21
6 IRL BARR, Thomas 49.34
7 JPN NOZAWA, Keisuke 49.42

Thomas Barr of Ireland finishes 3rd in Diamond League meet in Zurich

At the Diamond League Meet in Zurich on Thursday evening, Thomas Barr finished an impressive third in the men's 400m hurdles.

With just 100m to go, Tom was in joint 6th but put in his usual kick to tear through the field to finish third.

Tom is in lane 4 in the yellow top.


Diamond League highlights...

Martin Fagan runs Olympic qualifying time in Zurich marathon

Martin Fagan has just completed the Zurich Marathon in a time of 2h 16m 09s which is inside the qualifying time of 2:17 required for the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Finishing in 11th place overall, Martin went through the half marathon mark in 1:06:16. Just to give you a better idea of how fast that is, a 1:06:16 half is 5:03 min/mile pace. A 2:16:09 full is 5:12 min/mile pace.

This will be a controversial result considering that he served a 2 year ban for taking EPO and there is likely to be a pretty mixed reaction to this.

More info in this interview with Feidhlim Kelly who writes athletics articles for the Irish Examiner

16 year journey for Dutch athlete Susan Kuijken...From Dream to Bronze

Now that the 2014 European Athletic Championships in Zurich are over, I have a lot of links, results and interviews of the Irish performances in this post.

As you would expect, this championship generated its fair share of video clips on the net including post race interviews. The most popular are usually for the big names in athletics as they expressed their joy or frustration at their respective performances.

One however stood out for me and it was the post race interview with the Dutch athlete Susan Kuijken. For her, it was the realisation of a dream instilled in her by her junior coach at the age of 12 that one day she would win a medal at a major championship. Last Saturday aged 28, she finished third in the 5000m to win a European Bronze medal to finish that 16 year journey.

In the interview below, she gives an emotional account of what that medal means to her and how she realised her dream...

Irish mens team set new national record in 4 x 400m relay

It was a very good day for the Irish relay teams today with both the men and women setting national records. The mens team in the 4 x 400m relay finished in 3rd place in the second heat in a time of 3m 03.57s. That was a new national record and broke the old record of 3:03.73 which was set in the European Championships in Munich in 1992.

The order they ran in and their splits were...
 BrianGregan 45.86...Brian Murphy 46.75...Ricard Morrissey 45.56...Thomas Barr 45.21

This is the race video....

Irish Relay Team sets a new national record in Euro Championships

The Irish relay team set a new record in the 4 x 100m relay at the European Athletic Championships in Zurich today. In the second heat, the Irish team finished in 4th place in the second heat in 43.84 seconds. That broke the old record of 43.93 seconds set in 2010.

L-R...Amy Foster, Kelly Proper, Sarah Lavin & Phil Healy of Bandon AC

That 4th place was almost enough to qualify for the final but was just outside. The last fastest losers spot from the first heat with 43.80s.

The Irish team in order of running were.....Amy Foster of Lisburn AC, Kelly Proper of Ferrybank AC, Sarah Lavin of Emerald AC and Phil Healy of Bandon AC.

In a post race interview with Phil Healy, she said..."We can’t ask for any more than that, we came out today and broke the national record, the changeovers were good, and the practicing we have been doing has been really good. We will plan for next year with the World Championships to look forward to."

The previous record of 43.93s was set in Barcelona at the European Championships and the team then was Amy Foster, Niamh Whelan, Claire Brady and Ailis McSweeney.

Race video.....It shows both heats and it's about 13 mins long. The intro to the Irish race starts about 8 min and the race at 9:30...

Fionnuala Britton runs 4th fastest time Irish time ever for her first marathon

The European Championship marathon was held today in Zurich on what was a very tough looped course with a testing hill on each lap. The Irish team was comprised of 3 women.....Fionnuala Britton, Sarah Mulligan and Barbara Sanchez.

This was a debut marathon for Fionnuala Britton and she finished in 10th place overall in an impressive time of 2h 31m 46s. That's an excellent time for a tough course and shows that her future really lies now in the longer distance. That time puts her in 4th place on the Irish all time list...

1 2:22:23 Catriona McKiernan 1 Amsterdam 1 Nov 1998
2 2:28:07 Carey May 1 Osaka 27 Jan 1985
3 2:29:01 Sonia O'Sullivan 8 London 17 Apr 2005
4 2:31:46 Fionnuala Britton 10 Zurich 16 Aug 2014
5 2:32:56 Regina Joyce-Bonney 7 Scottsdale AZ     4 Dec 1982
6 2:33:28 Nicola Duncan 1 London 13 Apr 2014
7 2:33:59 Marie Davenport 16 New York NY 6 Nov 2005
8 2:34:49 Monica Joyce 2 Sacramento CA 2 Dec 1984

Post race interview...


Sarah Mulligan finished in 36th place in a time of 2h 42m 43s and Barbara Sanchez finished in 41st in 2h 43m 59s.

The Irish team finished 7th overall.

These are the 5k splits for each of the Irish athletes. You can see where they were strong and where they struggled...
Fionnuala Britton 5k 17:21...10k 17:19...15k 17:28...20k 18:00...25k 18:06...30k 18:26...35k 18:20...40k 18:47
Sarah Mulligan 5k 17:54...10k 18:29...15k 18:26...20k 18:18...25k 18:23...30k 19:18...35k 19:54...40k 22:21
Barbara Sanchez 5k 18:29...10k 18:18...15k 18:33...20k 19:20...25k 19:29...30k 19:59...35k 20:02...40k 20:51

One of the more unusual aspects of the marathon championship was the Estonian team which consisted of the Luik triplets.

Liina Luik 2:41:48, Leila Luik 2:45:59 and Lily Luik 2:48:49.

Photo Credit : James Veale of West Waterford AC

Mark English of Ireland wins European Bronze in Zurich

At the European Athletic Championships in Zurich this evening, Mark English from Donegal finished 3rd in the mens 800m final to take a bronze medal. It really was a magnificent performance from the 21 year old.

Here is the race video....


Here is a post race interview with Mark English from Will Downing...


What a great talent......and still only 21 years old.

Photo from James Veale of West Waterford AC

Brendan Boyce sets new PB in the 50k walk in Zurich

The obvious big news story today was the world champion Rob Heffernan having to withdraw from the 50 km race walk in Zurich at the European championships. It really is such a tough event. A full marathon is 42.2kms in length and this is 8kms further...just over 31 miles......and it's race walking as opposed to running. It's hard to appreciate just how fit these guys are.

The winner of the race was Yohann Diniz of France who set a new world record time of 3:32:33. He went through the marathon mark in under 3 hours!

It's also worth noting the achievement of Brendan Boyce who was the other Irish interest in the race. Brendan who is coached by Rob finished in a very credible 16th place in a new personal best time of 3h 51m 34s. That's almost 3 minutes faster than his previous personal best of 3:54:24 set at the World Championships in Moscow in 2013.

Here is a breakdown of Brendan's splits...
10k...23rd...46:25 // 20k...21st...1:32:44 // 30k...20th...2:18:49 // 40k...17th...3:04:21

Just to put those times in perspective, if you ran at his average pace then you would do a half-marathon in 1:37:43 and a full marathon in 3:15:25........except of course Brendan was race walking.

A big improvement for the man from Donegal.

Post race interview...

Athletics Ireland announce selection standard for 2014 European Championships

Athletics Ireland have just announced the standards required to qualify for the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Switzerland in August 2014.

For most events, the qualifying period runs from the 1st of January to the 21st of July 2014. The athlete in most cases either has obtain one 'A' standard or if they are a named 'Development Athlete' then they need two 'B' performances.

The full info can be seen HERE

Usain Bolt wins Diamond League 100m race in Zurich in 9.90 seconds

After an awful start, the world record holder and Olympic champion Usain Bolt managed to stay ahead of the rest of the field to take first place in the mens 100m at the Diamond League event in Zurich this evening.

Heres the race...

Bolt runs 19.66s, Blake runs 9.76s in Zurich...30th Aug 2012

At a Diamond League meeting in Zurich on Thursday evening, Usain Bolt won the 200m race in an impressive 19.66 seconds. In cold and wet conditions, Bolt coasted home over the last 50 metres and never looked in danger of losing. While the time was well outside his 200m record, it was still the joint 18th fastest 200m time ever.




 In the 100m, Yohan Blake continued his fine form by winning in 9.76 seconds...

This was the joint 12th fastest time ever. Tyson Gay was disqualified a false start.

In the mens 800m, the Olympic champion and world record holder was beaten into a suprising second place over the last 100m despite leading for most of the race....

(Non English Commentary)

Post race, Ruhisha said..."My legs felt tired and I cannot run good if the weather is not good," Rudisha said. "I hoped for a fast race here and I'm a little disappointed."