Ireland’s Thomas Barr, has qualified for the 400m hurdles semi-finals at the World Championships in London.
Barr crossed the line in fifth place, but a few minutes later, news broke that Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands, was disqualified for jumping on the inside a hurdle and stumbling onto the line, promoting 25-year old Barr to fourth place, and securing automatic qualification for the semi-finals.
Running in lane six, Barr was quick out of the blocks and was sitting in fourth after 150 metres.
The 25-year-old continued strongly down the home straight and was sitting in fourth with 10 metres to go, before being beat at the line by Abdelmalik Lahoulou of Algeria, by one hundredth of a second.
Barr, who finished fourth at the Rio Olympics crossed the line in 49.79, a decent run from the Irish athlete who has limited race experience this year.
Barr’s time was slower than the 48.95 he ran at the Bislett Games in Oslo back in June, and his two national records from Rio 2016, 48.39 in the semi-finals and 47.97 in the final respectively.
To advance into the final, Barr will need to run closer to his times from Rio in tomorrow evening’s semi-finals.
Tom Barr on his fourth place finish in 49.79 and through to the semi-final pic.twitter.com/K3RJBtYB4u
— Athletics Ireland (@irishathletics) August 6, 2017
Winning heat two was USA’s TJ Homles who crossed the the line in 49.35.
In the first heat 400m Kerron Clement of the USA won in 49.4. Turkey’s Yasmani Capello, who Barr finished 0.05 seconds behind in Rio, won the third heat in 49.13.
Also winning heats were Juander Santos of Dominican Republic, and France’s Mamadou Kasse Hann.
In heat five, Britain’s Jack Green finished fifth, crossing the line in 49.55 and qualifying as a fastest loser.