Kerry O’Flaherty makes European Championships Steeplechase Final

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Photo from Amsterdam courtesy of Keith McClure

Newcastle & District AC’s Kerry O’Flaherty ran a massive season’s best to qualify for the European Championships Final on Sunday (10th July) at 4:15pm Irish time. In her 2nd race of the season 12 days earlier, O’Flaherty finished 2nd in the National Championships in 9:58.8. In conditions more akin to autumn in Ireland it was wet and windy for the warm-up and only 14C. It had stopped raining for the race but was still very blustery in the historic Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. 27 athletes toed the line in the heats and O’Flaherty was drawn in the second heat of two. In addition, based on season’s bests she was ranked 27th out of the 27 starters. It was an honest pace from the start with O’Flaherty through 1km in 3:15 and 2km reached in around 6:31.

An excellent final km saw O’Flaherty home in 9:45.53 – her 2nd best ever and only just under 3 seconds outside her best from
last year (9:42.61). She was 6th in the heat and qualified for the final with the 8th fastest time of the two heats overall.