Ciara Mageean has qualified for the women’s 1500m final at the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow.
The 2016 European bronze-medallist finished third in her heat, with the first two ahead of her qualifying automatically, to make it to Sunday’s decider.
Mageean had stayed in third position for much of the race behind the Czech Republic’s Simona Vrzalova, but both were pushed down by a late surge in the closing straight from Marta Perez of Spain, who clocked a lifetime best 4:08.05.
Vrzalova was second by one-hundredth of a second, with Mageean’s 4:08.15 putting her through as the fastest loser, plus with the third-fastest time overall to boot.
But Sommer Lecky bowed out in the high jump, with three misses at 1.81 metres, and Conall Kirk was sixth in his 800m heat.
