AFTER SUCCESSFULLY QUALIFYING for the semi-finals of the European Indoor Championships in Prague today with a very impressive time of 47.03 seconds in his heat, Dara Kervick missed out on a place in the final despite running sub 47 seconds.

Kervick has shown great potential in his recent events, bringing down his time and has looked quite comfortable in his victories on the track, bringing home a national title just two weeks ago with a new personal best of 46.53.

But can he pinpoint just where his newfound speed has come from?

“I was over the moon after running 46.80 at Nationals,” Kervick told The42 recently ”but what was weird was that it felt easier running the 46.5 the following day and it just flowed and when I saw the clock it was savage.

“When you put in the hard work in training, it pays off. I wanted to push myself in training but it’s not about doing that much more it’s just about recovery.

“This year was about recovering more and about being able to put the quality in rather than the quantity.”

The 23-year old was in confident form coming into this weekend and had a very clear strategy in mind, something he applied perfectly in this morning’s heat.

“Its important to get out in front and that’s what I will be trying to do. I feel like I am able to get off faster and get a good position this year.

“For the first 200 metres you are aiming to beat your personal best and then for the second 200 you want to hold your form and you want to be able to maintain it as much as you can.

“It depends if it is an indoor or outdoor event. With an outdoor event you can nearly do what you want regarding starting fast or finishing fast, it’s a personal choice, but indoors it is a lot harder and if you are not in contention after after the first lap it is very hard.

“So it’s important to have a good first 200.”

The Clonliffe Harrier played numerous sports growing up but felt from an early age that athletics was for him, even if athletics was not the most popular sport among his peers.

“It was actually in primary school [I took up athletics] and we used to have races around the school and some of the kids who did athletics would say I was really fast and that I should give it a go.

“I persuaded my parents — who brought me to everything from soccer to Gaelic — that I liked the fact it wasn’t a team sport and you kind of got out of it what you put into it and it worked quite well.”

And choosing the 400m event was just the natural progression for the DCU student.

“I started when I was younger doing the long jump and the 60 metres and then I moved onto the hurdles so I kind of progressed up the way.”

However, failing to make the final will be a disappointment for Kervick who had a very clear goal coming into this weekend.

“You would be lying if you said you didn’t want to make the final but I will be happy if I run competitively and I can’t really control what everybody else runs.

“If I run to the best of my ability I will be happy.”

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