Mark Carroll failed in his bid to break Ray Flynn's national 1,500 metres record, when he could only come home sixth in the opening race of his European campaign which should ultimately lead to the Olympic Games in Sydney.

Carroll came to Barcelona in order to consign Flynn's mark of three minutes 33.50 seconds to history but instead came home over three seconds adrift in 3:36.91 seconds.

The problems for the European indoor 3,000 metres champion started at the bell when jetlag began to take effect. "I got in on Sunday from Boston and to be fair I was a little tired," said Carroll. "It was too slow to begin with and when the pace lifted in the final lap I felt a little weary." Carroll has two more races in the coming week and his lacklustre performance in the Catalan city did not unduly worry him. "In Oslo on Friday I'm running a mile and then on Tuesday in Stockholm I'm going over 5,000m. This outing had the effect of shaking out the legs".

Carroll could not even boast of being the first Irishman home. Dubliner James Nolan, more at home over 800m, equalled the Olympic qualifying standard in finishing one place ahead of Carroll in 3:36.80. The winner of the sprint down the home straight in the erratically paced race was Portugal's Rui Silva, the European silver medallist two years ago, in 3:35.19.

There were strong performances earlier in the evening from Susan Smith-Walsh and Sinead Delahunty.

Smith-Walsh clocked 55.69 seconds over the 400m hurdles in what she described as her first serious race of the year: she finished fourth behind Germany's Ulrike Urbansky who won in 54.57 seconds.

Delahunty challenged reigning Olympic champion Russia's Svetlana Masterkova at the bell of the 1,500m but was caught a little short of speed in the home straight, finishing third just over a second outside her personal best in 4:5.28 seconds. Masterkova won in 4:02.78.