Sophie O'Sullivan ran a season's best to qualify for the semi-finals of the 1500m at World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
The European Under-23 champion stayed with the pace throughout, taking the inside lane, and started to make her move on the back straight, working her way up the field to be well-placed with 200m to race.
But O'Sullivan, daughter of Ireland running legend Sonia, still had work to do on the home straight as she looked to get inside the automatic qualifying places.
Blocked off a touch with just over 50 metres to run, O'Sullivan gambled and went around on the outside before bursting to the line and diving over to squeeze into sixth with her best time of the year, 4:02.12.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport's David Gillick afterwards, O'Sullivan, with the battle scars of her line jump visible, spoke of her pride of reaching the semis despite bone stress issues in the lead up to the heat.
"I haven't had the smoothest build-up but I just knew that if I can get to the start line, I can compete," she said.
"So it was all about maintaining, maintaining on the cross-trainer and stuff and, yeah, it's nice to see the work pay off."
"I felt pretty good," she said of her surge as the line neared. "But everyone was probably feeling pretty good because it's (the) World Championships.
"The last 100m I was going to give it a real crack and I kind of got cut off, tried to go too inside, but I thought 'no, I'm going to give it a good go here'.
"I went around everyone again and took a little bit of a dive, bit of a jump, cuts here are self-inflicted."
Sarah Healy also made it through to the semi-finals, with an impressive performance in the final heat to finish third, qualifying with plenty to spare at the line.
"Just so relieved to get through safely," she said.
"Maybe I looked more confident than I felt"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 13, 2025
Sarah Healy has been reacting to her fine 1500m heat performance with @DavidGillick as she became the second Irish athlete to reach the semi-finals. pic.twitter.com/WHkC4uv84n
"Going in, if you looked at all the numbers, I was expected maybe to get through. But I definitely know that means nothing and I've made a semi-final once before, but this year this championship I knew I'd be disappointed not to.
"So I'm relieved and it was fun. There are so many Irish people here and we're in Tokyo, it's crazy."
Healy added that watching O'Sullivan make her through prior to her own race gave her a timely boost to follow suit.
"I actually watched Sophie qualify right before. I guess the way Sophie turns up to championships is pretty inspiring, so I was like, she really laid it out there and I'm going to get through as well."
There was disappointment for Cork athlete Laura Nicholson, however, who finished 13th in the first heat and did not progress.
Earlier, it was a disappointing first session at the World Athletics Championships as Ireland's mixed relay team failed to make it through to the final in Tokyo.
The quartet of Jack Raftery (Donore Harriers), Sophie Becker (Raheny Shamrock AC), Conor Kelly (Finn Valley AC) and Sharlene Mawdsley (Newport AC) settled for sixth in their race, and as a result, failed to progress.
The European gold medallists, with Tipperary native Mawdsley running the last leg, posted a time of 3:13.59.
"It's a learning experience," said Mawdsley. "You can’t have an off day at a World Championships and that’s clearly what we had.
"It's our own fault, we made mistakes in the race, but we've learned so much from it, for next year going into the Europeans. We're defending champions and we'll want to put our best foot forward then, so we'll be back."
In the men's 35km Race Walk, Mullingar Harriers athlete Oisin Lane finished in 28th position, making his world championships debut.
"It was very tough. It's a huge surprise, in the last 10k I was just trying to finish," he said.
"I was moving nicely, found a good flow, then at 25k just everything blew up at once, the stomach went, the legs went, the head went, and they stopped giving out sponges on the course so it was harder to cool down."
There was further disappointment for Team Ireland in the men's shot put as Eric Favors failed to qualify.
"I couldn't do it on the day, it’s a tough one," said Favors.
Watch the World Athletics Championships with RTÉ Sport, with coverage on RTÉ2 and the RTE Player at 9.45am on Saturday morning
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