PARIS - 27th August 2003, special to Irish Runner.com by Dave Mervyn

26-year-old Paul Brizzel put in an excellent performance to end his individual season finishing just outside of qualification for the 200m semi-finals with fifth place in tonight's last quarterfinal in the Stade de France.

The Irish record holder had an array of talent inside him, from his draw on lane eight, with Namibia's World number one Frankie Fredericks, Britain's Darren Campbell and American John Capel taking to their blocks.

Despite a mysterious false start in which no athlete dipped under a 0.1 reaction time, Brizzel managed to start perfectly on the second occasion with the quickest race reaction of 0.144.

The race quickly became a struggle in the centre lanes with Campbell, Fredericks and Capel, the eventual winner in 20.30, taking the first three qualifying spots. Pole Marcin Jedrusinki was nearly caught on the line by the fast finishing Brizzel, but the Ulster man was ran out by just three hundredths of a second.

Brizzel clocked a season's best of 20.56, two tenths quicker than his heat time and inside the required 20.59 for a 2004 ticket to Athens. The Ballymena sprinter is part of the Irish 4x400m squad that competes later this week.

'Something special from lane eight' says Brizzel. Paul Brizzel, or the Ballymena Bullet as he has come to be known, didn't know whether to laugh or cry in the aftermath of his fifth place in 200m quarter-final action last night.

'It was something special to run 20.56 out of the eighth lane, but looking at the times I'm quite unfortunate really in that my time would have qualified me fourth from any of the other quarters tonight,' explained the sprinter.

'I had been doing really fast times in training and ran 14.57 in a 150m time trial before I came to here, so I knew I was in great shape,' he said.

'Missing out on a semi-final is so crucial to me so I'm a little annoyed with that, But I have the standard for the Olympics and over the next few years I hope to build on that', he concluded. His time, just two hundredths outside his three-year-old national record, put him thirteenth fastest from the four races, yet unfortunately he was not amongst the sixteen sprinters to advance.

IAAF Paris World Championships