What’s going on with the Irish athletes in the 1500m?
Well, both Sophie O'Sullivan and Sarah Healy ran in their respective heats of the competition this morning, and just fell short in terms of automatic qualification for the semi finals, but will still have a chance via the repechage.
There was one talking point that persisted over all however, the notable absence from the starting line ups of none other than the European champion in this event, Ciara Mageean.
Yesterday, Team Ireland released a statement announcing that the Portaferry woman would withdraw from the race, given she was experiencing “painful chronic Achilles issues” in the weeks leading up to the event.
“Despite every effort made by Ciara and the Team Ireland medical team, the European champion will unfortunately be unable to toe the line tomorrow morning,” the statement, released last night, said.
“I’m absolutely heartbroken not to be able to compete in my third Olympic Games,” Mageean herself added.
“I gave it everything to make it possible to be on the start line, but time was against me. I want to thank everyone for their support.”
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What’s going on with the Irish athletes in the 1500m? Where did O'Sullivan and Healy place this morning?
On the race continued however, with Sophie O'Sullivan the first of the Irish athletes to step up and compete.
The 22 year old completed her Olympic debut with a time of 4:00.23, a PB, which secured her seventh place.
This put her one spot outside of automatic qualification, but O’Sullivan will take plenty of confidence heading into the repechage.
“It honestly felt really good,” she says, reflecting on the race with Her Sport.
“I was kind of surprised. I didn't realise we were going that fast at all to be honest. I think I was just focused on those six people…Obviously you know if you run the best you have ever run it's great,” she adds.
Joining in her in that repechage stage will be Healy, who was pipped to an automatic qualification spot by just .8 of a second.
She clocked a time of 4:02.91, but was overtaken in her final strides by New Zealand’s Maia Ramsden.
Speaking after the race, Healy touched on how she was “really disappointed.”
“I came into this in such great shape and I should have just been able to do that comfortably the pace…everything just felt really hard,” she says.
“I kind of thought I was maybe hanging on to sixth and I was trying my best, but had I known there was maybe someone there I could have maybe held on for that sixth spot. All the same i was not happy with how it felt regardless,” she adds.
The women’s 1500m repechage will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 11.45am Irish time.
