Mills 8th in semi finals at World Junior Championships
Joanna Mills
Joanna Mills is part of a 15 member squad to compete at the IAAF World Junior Track and Field Championships held in Barcelona from the 10-15th of July.
400 Semi Finals
Joanna Mills (Ballymena & Antrim AC) placed eight in the women’s 400m semi-finals on day three of the World Junior Track and Field Championships in Barcelona, Spain. Mills was drawn in the first semi final with only the top two athletes qualifying automatically for the semi finals.
Mills made a good impression coming out of the blocks and looked strong going down the back straight. Mills then started to struggle slightly coming into the finishing straight and eventually finsihed eight in a time of 54.52. The time was just outside her season best performance of 54.17, which she set in yesterday’s heats. Ericka Rucker of America won the race in a personal best time of 52.05
400m Heats
Joanna Mills (Ballymena & Antrim AC), coached by Ian Neely, finished 4th in Heat 1 of the 400m at the World Juniors in a seasons best of 54.17 seconds this morning.
Joanna seemed to time her race very well and remained cool on the back straight to finish strong. There was a nervous wait for the athletes when issues with the starting blocks delayed the start.
She was in one of the fastest heats of the day and so qualified as third fastest loser behind Rasanen of Finland and Battaglia of Italy.
Fastest qualifier was the winner of Joanna's heat, Ashley Spencer of USA in 52.58 seconds who is favourite to take the World Junior title.
"Joanna ran well," said her coach Ian Neely. "She had a tough lane draw [lane seven] but ran a season's best and should go faster tomorrow without doing anything different."
The semi finals of the Womens 400m will be on Thursday 12th July at 19.35 local time (20.35 in Barcelona).
Mills has already been in great form this season taking a bronze medal over 400m (54.84) in the 2012 BUCS Championships held in the Olympic stadium in May. She was also named as part of the 4x400m Relay Team that went to the European Athletic Championships in Finland in June.
