Madrid - special to Irish Runner.com by Arran Hussey

If she holds her form, Cork athlete Derval O'Rourke should qualify for Sunday's final in the 60m hurdles. The UCD scholarship student trimmed 0.04 seconds of her own national record (8.06, Sheffield, England, 13/02/05) to finish second in her heat in 8.02 and was the fourth fastest woman out of the sixteen qualifiers for the tomorrow morning's semifinal. The 23 year-old would have an outside chance of a medal but Spain's Glory Alozie and the UK's Sarah Claxton, who qualified in slower times then O'Rourke, will step up a gear in the semifinals and final. The next European Indoor Championship will be held in Birmingham in 2007 and at that stage O'Rourke would hope to be amongst the medals.

Dublin City Harrier's Ciara Sheehy was frustratingly close to qualification in the 200m. Sheehy ran a season's best of 23.73 to finish eleventh fastest out of the nineteen starters in this morning's heats. However, only ten women go through to the semifinals.

Paul Hession, 21, qualified for the semifinal round in the 200m taking 0.21 off his personal best running 20.80 placing 2nd in the fourth of six preliminary races. Britain's Chris Lambert, who holds the leading time in Europe this season, just shaded him for the win. Hession told Irishrunner.com, "I knew I was in shape but I didn't expect to go that fast in the heat. But I am disappointed I didn't win so I would have got a better lane later today."

Hession leapfrogs Gary Ryan and is now second on the Irish indoor all time list for the distance behind Paul Brizzel. Paul Brizzel placed 3rd in the first heat running 21.27. After the race he talked about his race, "What can I say? I stumbled at the start. I just hope I've done enough to qualify." Unfortunately, he didn't with the last spot going to going to Panayiótis Sarrís of Greece in 21.10.

In the 200m semifinal, Hession placed 3rd in race #3 in 21.03 with the top two advancing to the final.

Like teammate Ciara Sheehy, Dubliner Peter Coghlan narrowly missed out on qualification in the 60-metre hurdles. This time, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Sheehy's narrow miss has attracted some media attention as two disqualifications in another heat saw Angela Morosanu of Romania run that race on her own and qualify in a slower time then Sheehy. In Coghlan's case, he was just fractions away from producing what was required on the day.

Sixteen athletes qualified and Coghlan was the eighteenth fastest. He expressed unhappiness with his hurdling technique but satisfaction with his speed when he spoke to Irishrunner.com afterwards. He achieved a seasons best of 7.82 but this is 0.25 outside his personal best at this distance. The 29 year-old who is based in Atlanta continues to struggle to return to the highpoint of his form as shown in the 1999 season.

2005 Madrid European Indoor Athletics Championships website