O'Sullivan through to 1500m final

Olympic 5,000 metre silver medallist Sonia O'Sullivan qualified for her second World Indoor Championships final by finishing …

Olympic 5,000 metre silver medallist Sonia O'Sullivan qualified for her second World Indoor Championships final by finishing third in her 1,500m heat in Lisbon this afternoon.

With the first three progressing to tomorrow's final automatically, O'Sullivan placed third in a time of 4 min 11.27secs as Romania's Violeta Beclea-Szekely won in 4:10.77 ahead of Portugal's Carla Sacramento (4:10.82).

O’Sullivan is racing the distance indoors for the first time and now faces two finals.

The first, over 3,000 metres, is scheduled to start at 5.20 this evening.

READ MORE

Two years ago in Maebashi, Gabriela Szabo - who piped her for Olympic gold - achieved the arduous feat. But this weekend the Romanian has decided the 1,500m is another race too many.

O'Sullivan will be heartened by the fact her time narrowly missed the Irish record.

That currently stands at 4:11.06 and belongs to Sinead Delahunty, who achieved it in New York last year. O'Sullivan is likely to break that mark in tomorrow's metric mile final.