Susan Smith continued her preparation for next month's World Championships at Seville with her best performance of the season at last evening's international meeting in Barcelona.
Smith made her experience tell when finishing strongly to win the 400 metres hurdles in 55.11 secs, an improvement of almost half a second on her time at the national championships at Santry recently.
Earlier in the day, Brian Liddy of Crusaders AC became only the second Irishman to break 51 seconds in the 400 metres hurdles in qualifying for today's final of the European Under-23 championships at Gothenburg.
Despite hitting three hurdles, Liddy was timed at 50.99 secs in finishing third in his semi-final and is now confident of significant further improvement. David Keoghan, the other Irish contender for the title, was sixth in his semi-final in 51.86 secs.
Gareth Turnbull, from Belfast, qualified for the 1,500 metres final tomorrow by finishing second in his semi-final in three minutes 43.86 seconds.
Less successful were Belfast-based 400 metres runner Paul McKee and Fiona Norwood and Maria Lynch, who failed to reach the finals of the 400 and 1,500 metres respectively.
