Ireland's Gillian O'Sullivan produced a wonderful performance to earn a silver medal in the women's 20 kilometre walk at the World Athletics Championships in Paris this morning. 37-year-old Walking great Yelena Nikolayeva claimed gold in a championship record of 1hr 26minutes 52seconds, 42 seconds ahead of O'Sullivan.
O'Sullivan was justifiably thrilled with her victory, waving her arms in celebration as she won Ireland's first athletics world medal since Sonia O'Sullivan took gold in the 1995 championships in the 5000m.
The 2001 silver medallist Valentina Tsybulskaya took Belarus's second medal of the championships as she won bronze, 36 seconds adrift of O'Sullivan.
Nikolayeva, who also has the fastest time this year, led O'Sullivan and Italian record holder Elisabetta Perrone by 20 seconds at the halfway mark on a hot, sunny day. But the Russian did not appear to be affected by the heat, which caused several athletes to drop out including her compatriot and defending world champion Olimpiada Ivanova.
Nikolayeva steadily increased her lead and was 48 seconds ahead of O'Sullivan with five km to go with Russia's Tatyana Gudkova moving into third as Perrone dropped out. But Tsybulskaya, silver medallist two years ago, then made her move up the field into third to push Gudkova out of the medals.
Chinese medal hopeful Hongjuan Song was one of seven athletes disqualified during the race.
Galway's Olive Loughnane bettered her 2001 Worlds performance by finishing 12th. Loughnane was Ireland's best overall performer two years' ago in Edmonton with 13th position, and her finishing time today of 1:30.53 was narrowly outside her personal best (1:30.29).
A slow first 5km had her placed down the field and she clocked 47:25 at the halfway point in 33rd place. But a great effort from the 27-year-old saw her climb the placings over the second part of the race.
Filed by James Boylan
