Thomas Barr: Not making 400 hurdles a weight off my shoulders

So close and yet so far for Barr!

The obvious headline as Thomas Barr failed in his attempt to qualify for the 400m hurdles at Paris 2024.

At the European Championships in Rome, Barr finished third in his semi-final, but only the top two automatically progressed.

And then at the recent National Championships in Santry, the Ferrybank athlete, despite winning in a time of 50.61, was short of the automatic qualifying standard of 48.70.

There was the hope that those ahead of him in the rankings would drop out; they didn't. But a third Olympics beckons for Barr as part of the 4x400m mixed relay team - the opportunity to follow up on the gold medal won at the Europeans on 7 June.

There was a moment of grieving after the Waterford native failed in his quest to make it as an individual competitor in Paris.

On those regrets, he told RTÉ Sport at the Team Ireland athletics squad announcement: "I had that 'oh, what if?'. I sort of went back into historical data of 'oh, if I could have run this time here or if I had gotten a few extra points at this race or if I had run 49.8 or 9 at the national championships, I’d have qualified'.

"It was like a kick to my pride and also I shot and missed, in that I put a huge amount of work this year into getting qualified for Paris over the hurdles and it didn't pay off.

"Yeah, look, I'm not going to sugar-coat it, it was very disappointing because it's been my game for so long and I had qualified for a championships every single year since 2011.

"This is the first one that I really felt I missed out on but again, checking my privilege, I've been lucky to have had that kind of a track record.

"What I just meant was that this one was quite difficult because I put in nearly more work this year.

"Because I was