IRELAND’S DERVAL O’ROURKE booked her place in the semi-finals of the 100m hurdles this morning with second place finish in 13.07 at the world championships in Daegu.
Championship favourite, Sally Pearson of Australia, beat the Cork woman to the line in 12.53, the fastest qualifying time overall.
The semi-final takes place at 11.15am Irish time tomorrow.
The European Silver medallist is 19th overall going into the semi-final and the O’Rourke will need to make a significant improvement on this to make the final, as she did in Berlin in 2009.
Elsewhere however, there was huge disappointment for Irish record holder Paul Hession. The Athenry AC athlete will not progress to the 200m semi-final after finishing fourth in his heat in 21.02.
A time of 20.70 would have been good enough for Hession to gain a fastest loser spot into the next round.
The women’s 4x400m team of Marian Heffernan, Joanne Cuddihy, Claire Bergin and Michelle Carey are also out despite producing a quality performance to finish fourth in their heat in a new Irish record of 3:27.48.
Usain Bolt easily qualified for the 200-meter semifinals in the world championships Friday, five days after he was disqualified from the 100 final for a false start.
Bolt had the second-slowest start of 53 sprinters in the 200 heats, yet easily was the fastest at the line, finishing in 20.30 seconds. He glanced to his left from the outside lane several times before turning off the power and coasting across the line.
When asked how he felt, Bolt simply gave a thumbs up.
- additional reporting AP
