Coscoran misses out on final place

Andrew Coscoran, who is a member of Star of the Sea AC, missed out on a place in the 1,500m Olympic final when he finished 10th in the semi-final today.

Coscoran was at the back of the field for much of the race and while he put in a late surge on the final stretch he was unable to make up the ground he conceded earlier.

The race was won by Britain's Jake Wightmann in 3:33.48 ahead of USA's Cole Hocker and Kenya's world champion Timothy Cheruiyot. Coscoran's time was 3:35.84, just outside his personal best of 3:35.66.

It was a major achievement for Coscoran to make it to the semi-final where he rubbed shoulders with some of the world's finest middle distance runners.

Despite today's disappointment he can look back on his first Olympic Games with considerable pride. The experience he gained will, no doubt, be a great help to him when he returns to the track.

Corscoran qualified for semi-finals as one of the fastest runners outside of the automatic qualifiers.

He finished eighth in his heat showing real resolve to finish strongly, passing three runners in the final 100 metres.

However, today he found it more difficult to put in strong finish and ended up well behind the front-runners.