Blake fails to progress in 800m heats

Malta's Tanya Blake yesterday gave a disappointing performance on the opening day of the World Championships in Paris when she failed to progress from her 800m heat. The English-born middle-distance runner finished fourth in her heat with a time of...

Malta's Tanya Blake yesterday gave a disappointing performance on the opening day of the World Championships in Paris when she failed to progress from her 800m heat.

The English-born middle-distance runner finished fourth in her heat with a time of 2:04.61... over five seconds slower than her own national mark of 1:59.56 set in Oregon, US earlier this year.

The race was won by medal-favourite Stephanie Graf of Germany who crossed the finishing line first in 2:03.39.

The top three from each heat plus the nine fastest losers qualified for the semi-finals. Heidi Jensen of Denmark grabbed the last place in the semi-finals with a time of 2:02.01, 2.6 seconds faster than Blake.

Darren Gilford, Malta's other representative in the Championships, will be in action today in the 100m heats.

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