Ireland 4x400m mixed relay team through to World Championships final

Ireland's 4x400m mixed relay team of Sophie Becker, Jack Raftery, Chris O'Donnell and Sharlene Mawdsley are through to the final at the World Championships in Budapest.

The quartet clocked a time of 3:13.90 seconds to finish fourth in their heat but it was good enough to take the fastest non-automatic qualifying spot and with it a place in this evening's final at 8.47pm Irish time.

Mawdsley's final leg of 50.14 was the fastest of any anchor and it helped the Irish team reach a third straight global final.

Sarah Healy finished fourth in the heats of the 1500m to make the final in a time of 4:03.00. Sophie O'Sullivan finished eight in her heat, clocking a PB of 4:02.15 to finish and just miss out on the final, with the top six in each heat going through to Sunday's medal race.

Elsewhere Alvaro Martin of Spain captured gold in the 20km race walk, with Kerryman David Kenny withdrawing just before the 16km mark.

Martin moved into the lead with about 5km remaining to finish in one hour 17.32 seconds, the fastest time in the world this season, on the soggy 1km loop course that started and finished at picturesque Heroes' Square.

Sweden's Perseus Karlstrom won silver in 1:17.39, while Caio Bonfim of Brazil claimed the bronze (1:17.47).

Heptathlon athlete Kate O'Connor ran a personal best of 13.57 in the 100m hurdles after finishing third in her heat.

In the high jump, O'Connor jumped 1.80m on her first attempt, her PB is 1.81m.

Eric Favors finished 13th in Group A of the shot put, to be placed 23rd overall. He had a best throw of 19.65 on his third attempt.