Notre Dame junior Thomas Chamney easily advanced from Wednesday's opening round race. Chamney, 22, ran a relaxed personal best of 1.48.45 to place third in Heat 1 of 4. Chamney moved on as an automatic qualifier.

In Thursday's semifinal, Chamney would have to finish in top three or be one of the next to fastest times to qualify for Saturday's final.

Once again, the lad from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was at a disadvantage being in the first of two semifinal races.

Journalist extraordinaire, Parker Morse from eliterunning.com describes the first semifinal race: "Prince Mumba of Oral Roberts bolted to the front on the backstretch, and led through the lap in 51.99.

On the backstretch they ran three wide, with Wil Fitts of Baylor and Tim Bayley of Iona joining Mumba in the lead; with 200m remaining, it was Fitts and Mumba in control and Bayley just behind. On the homestretch, though, Joseph Lomong of Northern Arizona took advantage of the open lane on the inside as the others drifted out, and scooted past to win the heat in 1:47.00, followed by Bayley (1:47.42) and Mumba (1:47.46).

With three advancing automatically to the final from each heat and two spots going to the next two fastest times, Fitts (1:47.53) and Notre Dame's Thomas Chamney (1:47.70) were left waiting on the second heat to see if they would advance."

With the luck of the Irish, Chamney advanced as the fastest loser. He also etched off .75 seconds off his one-day old personal best. If he can mange to knock off a half-second in Saturday's final, he meet the extremely tough European Championship Standard of 1.47.20.

Also competing on Wednesday was Providence College senior Mary Cullen. Cullen had no trouble winning her 5,000-meter qualifier in 16.05.12. Her rival, Molly Huddle, from Notre Dame also won her race in 16.07.44, setting up a stellar showdown on Friday evening at 7.00 pm PDT.

The third Irish runner competing on Thursday was Deirdre Byrne, a graduate student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Byrne, from Wicklow, ran 4.21.65 to place seventh in the second of two semifinal heats in the women's 1,500m. She missed advancing to Saturday's final by .66 seconds.