It doesn’t matter whether it’s the longest or the shortest race, split-second decisions often prove costly at the World Indoor Championships. Not enough to cost Ireland another medal in Nanjing, although a marginally different decision may have brought both Sarah Healy and Sarah Lavin even closer.
Neither athlete would likely disagree. So after the frantic three days of track and field action in Nanjing, Kate O’Connor returns home as the only medal winner among the six-strong Irish team, her pentathlon silver on Friday ending the 19-year wait since Derval O’Rourke last won anything for Ireland at this level with her gold in the 60m hurdles.
After Healy finished up sixth in her 3,000m final on Saturday, with Andrew Coscoran also sixth in the men’s event, it still represents the best Irish showing at this event since Moscow in 2006. Given O’Connor continued her remarkable series of firsts in the multi-events, adding to her bronze medal won on the European stage in Apeldoorn, the natural assumption is Nanjing won’t be her last.
With entries from 127 countries, Ireland finished equal 19th among the 32 that won medals.
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Healy had made the 5,300-mile journey to China in the form of her life, winning the European Indoor gold medal over 3,000m two weeks previously. Keeping herself in medal contention from the gun, Healy lost some ground when the first telling surge was made with three laps remaining, dropping back to sixth, which is where she finished. Still, the sheer speed of the five women ahead of her was superior on the day, with Freweyni Hailu from Ethiopia winning in 8:37.21, Healy just under two seconds adrift of a medal.
Shelby Houlihan from the US also finished surprisingly fast to win silver in 8:38.26, her first championship since returning from a four-year doping ban, ahead of Jessica Hull from Australia, the Olympic 1,500m silver medallist, who took bronze in 8:38.28.
“I think it was a pretty solid race for me, I put myself in the right position from the start,” Healy later said. “Then when the big move was made with maybe three laps to go, I was maybe a little bit too far back, and had a bit to make up, so I could have done a little better than that. But obviously it just leaves me hungry for more.”
The last individual track final in Nanjing was the women’s 60m hurdles on Sunday, and Lavin had clear ambitions of being there. Fifth in the final last time out, the 30-year-old Limerick athlete had the form too, finishing fourth in her European Indoor final, when running a season best of 7.92 seconds.
Only a split-second decision in her semi-final to attack the first of the five hurdles a little too aggressively cost Lavin some momentum, as she clipped it and finished seventh in 8.14 seconds. Only the top two qualified automatically, Ackera Nugent from Jamaica finishing second in 8.00 despite crashing into her final hurdle, part of which was sent flying into Lavin’s lane alongside her.
It wasn’t judged to have impeded Lavin, whose disappointment was made worse by the knowledge she certainly had an 8.00-second clocking in her legs. Nugent also went on to win bronze in the final, clocking 7.74.
World record-holder Devynne Charlton from the Bahamas successfully defended her title in 7.72, with the top six separated by just 0.04. Such are the close margins in sprint hurdles, but the event continues to move on: Nadine Visser from the Netherlands was sixth in 7.76, which would have been enough to win 15 of the past 20 editions of the World Indoors.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen came to Nanjing still chasing a first World Indoor title, and a first global 1,500m title, and the wunderkind from Norway came away with only the second men’s 1,500m-3,000m double since Haile Gebrselassie in 1999. Both races were won in contrasting styles, his 3,000m victory on Saturday not decided until the last bend, when he eventually kicked past Berihu Aregawi from Ethiopia to win in 7:46.06.
Coscoran did some front-running around the halfway mark, gaining a couple of places on the last lap to nail sixth. Like Healy it was his best finish on the global stage, representing further progress for the 28-year-old from Dublin.
“I’m going to be a little bit disappointed that I didn’t come top three, but it was another positive run in the right direction,” Coscoran said. James Gormley came home 13th in 7:56.43.
Coscoran had also hoped to make Sunday’s 1,500m final, missing out by one place as Ingebrigtsen completed his double by taking control at about halfway, winning in 3:38.79 ahead of Britain’s Neil Gourley (3:39.07) and Luke Houser from the US.
That makes it 22 senior titles at age 24 for Ingebrigtsen, his insatiable appetite for championship running set to continue at the World Championships in Tokyo in September. The Irish medal hopes could be at their strongest in a while too.
