Olympics:Deirdre Ryan was unable to repeat her heroic jumping of 12 months ago as a place in the Olympic final proved beyond her reach this morning. Ryan had came to London a little short of the form that last summer saw her make the final of the World Championships, when she cleared an Irish record of 1.95 metres, and ended up the sixth best jumper in the world.
Despite the perfect conditions yesterday morning, the 30 year-old Ryan could only manage a best of 1.85, jumping in Group A, and that left her well down on a top-12 spot for the final.
Ryan did clear 1.80 metres on her first time attempt, and then cleared 1.85m at her second attempt, but after that failed all three efforts at 1.90m: 1.93 metres could have qualified her for the final, based on count back, although that wasn’t enough for Germany’s Ariane Friedrich, the former World Champion and one of the gold medal favourites, who also missed out on what proved to be a very close qualification protest.
“Of course I am disappointed with that,” she admitted. “I at least wanted to jump a season’s best, of 1.90m.
“But I have had a back injury, which went into spasm, and seized up and for a week, and I couldn’t really jog, but that was two weeks ago. I’ve had treatment twice a day and I didn’t feel it out there, so I certainly don’t want to use that as an excuse.”
Even in the moment of disappointment however she did get to enjoy another remarkable morning inside the Olympic Stadium: “The atmosphere really was incredible, the crowd were really behind me, cheering me every time.”
