Ciara is on song at Doha

Ciara is on song at Doha

9 October 2019

PORTAFERRY’S Ciara Mageean produced a brave performance to finish 10th in the final of the 1500m at the World Athletics Championships in Doha on Saturday night.

She ran a personal best of 4:00:15, but still finished well behind the winner, Sifan Hassan, who also took gold in the 10,000m.

Ciara finished fifth in Thursday’s semi-final to become the first Irish woman since Sonia O’Sullivan in 1997 to reach a World Championship final. 

She battled brilliantly in Sunday’s showdown to seal a lifetime best, coming agonisingly close to breaking the four-minute barrier.

Even so, she beat her personal best by over one second. Her time would have been good enough to win gold at the last seven championships.

“To come 10th in the world, I’m absolutely over the moon,” Mageean said afterwards.

“I knew it was going to be tough. I started falling off the back a bit, but I didn’t lose my head and gave it everything in the final 100m.

“I’m going to work hard over the next while because I want to close that gap and compete for medals in the future.”