Newry athlete Aislinn Crossey fourth in Euro Junior final

Newry athlete Aislinn Crossey produced a brilliant performance as she finished a remarkable fourth in the 800m final at the European Junior Championships.

Crossey, 17, reduced her personal best by nearly two seconds as she clocked 2:03.93 to just miss out on a medal.

The Newry AC athlete went into the championships in Rieti with a personal best of 2:06.43.

She improved that to 2:05.50 on Thursday as she qualified as a fastest loser for the Rieti final.

In the event, Crossey missed out on a medal by only .82 of a second as Iceland's Anita Hinriksdottir (2:01.14) took gold ahead of Ukraine's Olena Sidorska (2:01.46) with Germany's Christina Hering (2:03.11) pipping the Irish hopeful for bronze.

Crossey, who began running five years ago, would have been regarded as an outsider of the two Irish challengers in Saturday's final but the Newry athlete came in ahead of Siofra Cleirigh-Buttner who had to settle for eighth place in 2:06.23.

The performance marks out Crossey as a major talent for the future and the 17-year-old, who is coached by Francis O'Hagan, has two more years in the junior ranks.

On a good day for the Irish in Rieti, Sarah Lavin clinched a silver medal in the women's 100m hurdles as she improved her personal best and national junior record to 13:34.

Switzerland's Noemi Zabaren won the gold in 13:17 with Lavin holding off France's Heloise Kane (13:36) for the silver.

Marcus Lawler narrowly missed out on a medal in the 200m as he finished fourth in 20.99.

Lawler's semi-final time of 20.88 would have been good enough to take silver in the final but he was pipped by British trio Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake (20.62), Leon Reid (20.92) and Matthew Hudson-Smith (20.94).

Clonmel athlete Sean Tobin was fourth in the 1500m final in 3:45.73 where Letterkenny athlete Ruairi Finnegan took seventh in 3:46.80.

Tobin missed out on a bronze medal by less than half a second with Britain's Jake Whiteman winning gold in 3:44.14.