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Sophie O’Sullivan produced the performance of her life to finish seventh in her heat of the Women’s 1500m on day 11 of the Olympic Games in Paris. The Ballymore/Cobh AC athlete clocked a time of 4:00.23 to move to fourth on the Irish all-time list for the event, just missing out on a semi-final spot by one place.

O’Sullivan will now have to race again in tomorrow’s repechage but can take plenty of confidence from her performance this morning.

“I knew I was pretty fit and I am good when it matters. I was really surprised, I thought we were going way slower. I thought I had it with 200m to go, and I just got caught up behind someone and tripped a little bit. I got going again but it was enough to lose a little bit too much,” she said.

Sarah Healy finished in the exact same position in her heat of the event and will, like O’Sullivan, have to prepare now for the repechage tomorrow. The 23-year-old crossed the line in 4:02.91 and admitted post-race that she was “confused” by her performance.

“I’m really disappointed. I didn’t feel very good and then I tied up at the end which has now happened to me twice so I’m like, ‘what’s going on?’ It’s really hard. I came into this in such great shape and I should have been able to do that comfortably. I was hanging on to sixth, I was trying my best and had I known there was someone right there I probably could have hung on for that sixth spot,” she said.

O’Sullivan will run in the first of the two repechages tomorrow with Healy in the second. Only the top three across the line in each repechage will book a spot in the semi-finals.

Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker also both failed to advance to the semi-finals of the Women’s 400m following their repechage heats. Mawdsley finished third in her race in 51.18, down on the personal best she had ran the day before, while Becker clocked the second fastest time of her career, 51.28, to finish second in her heat.

“It was fine, I’d have had to run a PB to have qualified and I did that yesterday, which was annoying. I think I ran everyone else’s race bar my own which is disappointing, but I’m not too disappointed. It’s the Olympic Games. I’m showing up when it counts,” Mawdsley said.

Becker was also satisfied with her efforts. Herself and Mawdsley will return to action in the Women’s 4x400m Relay on Friday.

“I produced my second fastest time ever; I can’t be greedy. The perfectionist in me wants more but I have to be happy with that. I’ll rest up tonight, shake out tomorrow and then meet with the relay on Thursday. You can’t dwell on this race too long,” she said.