Niall Bruton finished with his leg badly gashed but with his pride largely intact in qualifying yesterday for this evening's semi-finals of the 1,500 metres championship.

Bruton claimed the last of the five automatic qualifying places in the first heat, won by Noureddine Morceli, when running his fastest time of the season to date, three minutes 37.57 seconds.

The performance is put in perspective by the fact that the Kenyan, John Kibowen, who clocked three minutes 30.44 seconds last month, making him one of the fastest in the world at the distance this season, could finish only ninth in this heat.

At one point it looked as if Bruton would finish in the top three, but after accelerating smoothly into second place behind Morceli going down the back straight for the last time he began to hit trouble.

First, Britain's John Mayock eased past him and when Bruton sought to follow Mayock along the kerb, he was suddenly confronted by the problem of the Briton stopping in front of him rounding the last bend.

"He just put on the brakes and I found myself with nowhere to go," Bruton said. "At that point, it became a little hairy, with a lot of people gathering for the charge."

It was at that point, too, that Bruton got spiked on his left leg and an old wound re-opened. Initially, the damage looked nasty, but once the cut had been tidied up it looked significantly less menacing.

After being spiked, and in a situation in which he might have panicked, Bruton held his composure admirably down the finishing straight when just enough space opened up to enable him to take fifth place.

Sadly, the evening held significantly less reward for our other 1,500 metres representative, Shane Healy, who finished last of eight in a time of three minutes 50.44 seconds in the fourth heat, which was won by the championship favourite, Hicham El Guerrouj.

Surprisingly, Healy saw fit to take the lead on the second lap and paid for his ambition by running out of steam on the last lap, when he dropped further and further behind, eventually finishing some 60 metres behind El Guerrouj.

"That was the worst race of my life - I couldn't breathe out there," he said. "I made a mistake taking the lead so early and it cost me over the last 400 metres."