Irish high-jumper Adrian O'Dwyer rose to the challenge of reaching the World Indoor Championship finals in Budapest tonight but then failed to make an impact against a quality line-up.
The 20-year-old Kilkenny athlete achieved his personal best of 2.27metres to reach the final but finished eighth out of the nine finalists when failing to go beyond 2.25m. Sweden's Holm Stefan won the event when he cleared 2.35m.
O'Dwyer can take consolation from the fact he became the first Irish athlete to progress that far at World Indoor level.
Earlier in the day Paul Brizzel made it safely through his opening heats of the 200m but an Achilles injury ruled him out of lining up in the semi-final. In an Olympic year it was too much to risk. The Ballymena sprinter qualified for the semi-final by virtue of his second place in the earlier heat with a time of 21.12 seconds.
There was disappointment for Paul Hession, who ran the same time as Brizzel in the heats, but failed to qualify from third place.
There was disappointment for Paul Hession, who ran the same time as Brizzel, but failed to qualify from third place in his heat.
In the women's event Ciara Sheehy finished third (23.86) in her heat but that wasn't good enough to make the semi-finals.
David McCarthy, who reached the 400m final last year, failed to qualify for the final stages this time around. He finished fifth (47.34) in his heat behind the winner, Jamaica's Davian Clarke.
In yesterday's competition Maria McCambridge comfortably qualified for tomorrow's 3000m final. She finished third (8.59:11) in her heat.
Elsewhere, Karen Shinkins was below par to finish sixth in her 400m heat in a time of 54.37seconds. Joanne Cuddihy also finished sixth (54.02). Gary Ryan was fifth (6.83) in his 60m heat and failed to progress.