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\nBori Akinola finished third in heat 3 to progress to this evening’s semi-final<\/p>\n
On a successful first morning session at the World Indoor Championships, Bori Akinola got Ireland off to a flying start by qualifying for the semi-finals of the 60m in Torun, Poland.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old ran 6.59, his second-fastest time ever, to finish third in heat three and qualify 11th fastest overall for the next round taking place this evening (7.30pm).<\/p>\n
\nBori Akinola finished third in heat 3 to progress to this evening’s semi-final<\/p>\n
Akinola’s heat was won by Bryan Levell of Jamaica in 6.53, which was the second-fastest time of the morning behind 2016 World Indoor Champion Trayvon Bromell of the US. Bromell clocked 6.52 to win heat two.<\/p>\n
The time of 6.59 is Akinola’s fastest first-round run this season, and he believes he can go quicker in this evening’s semi-final.<\/p>\n
“The plan was literally just get through the rounds and then go into the next round…I know there’s a bit more there,” Akinola told RT\u00c9 Sport in Torun.<\/p>\n
Akinola added that his goal is now to make the final. If he can manage that, he will become the first Irishman to do so.<\/p>\n
“This is my first first race where I’ve gone sub 6.60 in the first round. I feel like if I do run quicker… It should be enough to make the final. That’s my goal now.”<\/p>\n
Mark English progressed safely from the men’s 800m heats, winning his race in a time of 1:46.42.<\/p>\n
English slotted into second position for the first 600m before hitting the front with a lap to run, and qualified comfortably, even taking a glance up at the big screen to check his positioning in the home straight.<\/p>\n
Fastest man in the world this year, Eliott Crestan was the quickest across the six heats clocking 1:45.51.<\/p>\n
Maeve O’Neill made her senior debut in the heats of the women’s 800m, taking on the pace at the 500m mark after a slow first 400m set by eventual winner Nigist Getachew.<\/p>\n
O’Neill crossed the line in third position, just three hundredths off the heat winner, running 2:03.20, but a subsequent disqualification of second-placer Valery Tobias of the United States means O’Neill will get another run in tomorrow’s semi-final (11.22am).<\/p>\n
“I’m shocked, I didn\u2019t know anything was after going on behind me,” she said upon finding out about the disqualification.<\/p>\n
“It was tough to make a decision to go up the inside with 300m to go as that\u2019s pretty early in the race still. I did fade in the last 40 or 50m, but I knew I had to try something.”<\/p>\n
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\nIndoor national record holder Maeve O’Neill progressed to the semi-finals on her senior debut<\/p>\n
Emma Moore, also making her senior debut, finished fifth in the sixth and final heat, with a 2:02.00 clocking, her second-fastest time ever, which wasn’t fast enough to progress.<\/p>\n
“I tried to surge and make up a bit of ground, but I think that cost me in the end,” she said. “I knew if I ran the right race I’d get in, but I was just outside that.<\/p>\n
“I made a few mistakes in trying to get into spaces. It\u2019s all experience and I\u2019m happy with that, 2.02 in a messy race.”<\/p>\n
World record holder Keely Hodgkinson safely qualified, winning heat one in a relaxed 2:00.32.<\/p>\n
James Gormley will race in the heats of the men’s 1500m this evening at 6:04pm,<\/p>\n
The first gold medal of the championships was won by Yaroslava Mahuchik in the women’s high jump with a best of 2.01m. Nicola Olyslagers, Angelina Topic and Yuliia Levchenko all cleared 1.99m. Count back couldn’t separate the trio, so three silver medals were awarded.<\/p>\n
Mahuchik reclaimed the title that she last won in 2023 and Topic bettered her father’s third-place finish in the 1999 championships, after ending up fourth in her last two appearances.<\/p>\n
Listen to live updates from the World Athletics Championships on Saturday and Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a successful first morning session at the World Indoor Championships, Bori Akinola got Ireland off to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-356469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}