A few weeks after completing an honours degree in mechanical engineering Thomas Barr was faced with what should have been a perfectly familiar test in distance and time over the 400 metres hurdles.
What Barr also faced was a more unexpected test in wind resistance. At some point he got his calculations slightly off, and with that went the place in the European Championship final he’d been justifiably aiming for all summer.
Still Barr wasn’t about to blame it on any physical or tactical thing, but rather his “intelligence just wasn’t right for me, not at its peak today” – perhaps another way of saying his head just wasn’t quite in it.
Barr needed to be in the top two to be guaranteed a final place tomorrow evening, but finished third, in 49.30 seconds.
Any hope he might progress as one of the two fastest losers quickly disappeared after the third semi-final was won in a European-leading best of 48.54 seconds by Rasmus Magi from Estonia, a national record. Both fastest losers came from that semi-final.
Why one race was notably faster than another was perhaps partly explained by the high swirling winds inside the Leztigrund Stadium – which initially forced the evening’s programme to be delayed by one hour.
The strong wind wasn’t expected; the strongly competitive races were.
"It just wasn't in me, on the day, and there's so much depth in the event, that one little slip will cost you, especially on a day like this, when only the top two were sure of qualifying," said Barr, his time just down on the winner Kariem Hussein from Switzerland, who ran 49.16, with Serbia's World Championship bronze medallist Emir Bekric second in 49.21.
“It was actually an okay race. Though the wind felt very strong against me, coming down the back straight, and took a lot out of me. I’m usually quite good at judging conditions like that, but that intelligence just wasn’t right for me, not at its peak today.
“I just didn’t judge it as well as I usually can, and that cost me an extra .05 or so over some of the hurdles. On a day like today that’s time you just don’t have.
“But I can’t blame the wind. Everyone else was in the same boat. I wasn’t the only one cursing and blinding the wind.”
Still he was closing fast, just not fast enough: “Maybe if I’d come to the last hurdle in a slightly better position. Or maybe if it was a 410m hurdles race I would have got them. But that’s no excuse. The final gear I needed just wasn’t there. The kettle was just off the boil.
“And maybe I just switched off a little, on the top bend. Instinct takes over, and I can’t really remember, but maybe I just didn’t drive off enough, the last few hurdles. But I was expecting the top two. And I expected I would too, I really did. Because I expected to be in that final. My aim was to come out and win. If not come a close second.”
At 22, and still learning so much about his event, Barr didn’t improve the Irish record to 48.90 seconds this summer by accident. For now, he intends to return to the University of Limerick, to begin work on a Masters Degree, while working too on graduating to an even higher level of 400m hurdle running.
“I’ll still take a huge amount from these championships. Look, it’s been the best season of my life. I’ve run sub-49, way beyond my own expectations, and if I can take another .9 off next year I will be flying.”
