Ireland's Susan Smith-Walsh on her way to a fourth-place finish in the 400 metres hurdles at the World Championships in Seville yesterday with a seasonal best time of 55.06 seconds. - (Photograph: Patrick Bolger/Inpho).

Susan Smith-Walsh will take her place on the starting line for the semi-finals of the world 400 metres hurdles championship in Seville today in the sombre knowledge that she must find significant improvement to progress.

She pushed herself to the point where she required several minutes to recover fully after yesterday's heats - and still only got through as one of the four fastest losers in a programme dominated by the Olympic title holder, Deon Hemmings, and the current world title holder, Nezha Bidquane of Morocco.

One can only hope that the relief which comes from surviving the preliminaries and a more familiar start time than yesterday's 6.30 a.m. wake-up call will enable her to see out her race better than on her first visit to the track.

Otherwise, her hopes of emulating her achievement in reaching the final at Athens two years ago look somewhat forlorn - even if she did produce a seasonal best time of 55.06 seconds in finishing just behind the automatic qualifiers, Hemmings, Michelle Johnson and Natalya Torshina in the last of the four heats.

For much of the journey in the sweltering, early morning sunshine, the promise of a much more impressive arrival at the finish line sustained Irish supporters in the stadium.

Taking a lead from Hemmings, running two lanes outside her, Smith-Walsh fairly flew the first 250 metres. Rising to the second last hurdle she was no more than half a metre down to the Olympic champion and over the last barrier the gap was only marginally bigger. Then, with the first two away and apparently clear of the pursuit, came Smith's unexpected crisis.

Losing momentum with every faltering stride, she was passed in turn, over the last 15 metres by Johnson and Torshina and the line came just in time to prevent the indignity of surrendering fourth place to the British girl Keri Maddox.

In spite of that disturbing finish, however, the Irish woman was still able to trace the silver lining. "I feel like I've run a good race - and now, hopefully, I can go faster in the semi-final," she said.

"I was really relaxed and running well after six hurdles. Now it's a matter of finishing better, but overall I feel better after that."

Those were scarcely the sentiments of somebody who believes that her Seville expedition is effectively over. The rest of us, however, may be less readily convinced.

Already through to the final is Brendan Reilly who, after two undistinguished performances for Britain in previous championships, celebrated his decision to switch allegiance to Ireland by qualifying for the shake out in the high jump this evening.

Reilly finished joint 12th with his former British team-mate Steve Smith on 2.26 metres and on a count back just made it into the final pool. In fact, he was unlucky not to have made the automatic qualifying mark of 2.29, dragging the lathe down with the back of his leg, but still managed to extract a lot of job satisfaction.

"I felt a lot of pressure coming here, but in reaching the final I think I've now shed some of it," he said. "I think I'm jumping well enough to go higher in the final and after that, who knows?" Smith left the arena in some discomfort after straining a muscle and may now miss the final.

Sadly, Nick Sweeney will not be involved in the discus final after failing to qualify with a disappointing throw of 58.62 metres, a long way short of his national record in yesterday's preliminaries. His third throw was the only one of his series to reach 60 metres, but, unfortunately, was fouled.

Confined to bed with a virus for much of the time since arriving here, he confessed to having little or no energy when he stepped into the circle. "Although my technique was good, there was zero power there and in that situation, I felt very disappointed," he said.

"I was happy enough with the way I got each of my opening throws away, but without power, technique alone was useless. It's obviously very frustrating and now I'm going to take a long break from competition before starting my preparation for Sydney."

Paddy McGrath's participation in the hammer championship was also short-lived as his best throw of 68.96 metres left him in 34th place, only four places away from the bottom of the list after Saturday's qualification process.