Paul Brizzel competed in the 200m in the Athens Olympics

Ballymena man Brizzel clocked 21.32 to finish fourth at the Flanders Indoor meeting in Ghent.

His time, .57 outside his Irish record, left him in fourth place.

Holland's Guus Hoogmoed (20.96) claimed victory ahead of Sweden's Johan Wissman (21.13) and British athlete Chris Lambert (21.23).

The European Indoor Championship standard is 21.40.

Paul Hession has also acheived the European Indoor mark but countries can be represented by two athletes in each event.

Also in Ghent, Colin Costello made a huge breakthrough to break his own National Junior 1500m record with a time of 3:46.17.

Meanwhile, in-form Ailis McSweeney again narrowly missed Michelle Carroll's national record when she competed at the Irish Indoor Championships at Nenagh on Sunday.

McSweeney (7.40) won her first senior title by beating Emily Maher with five-time champion Ciara Sheehy in third.

The victory guarantees Sweeney selection for the European Indoors.

Maher finished second in 7.42 and will continue to chase the Madrid standard (7.40) at next weekend's AAA's Championships.

In the men's 60m, Jer O'Donoghue set a personal best of 6.76 - but it was .01 outside the required standard for the European Indoors.

Gary Ryan won the men's 200m in 21.89 while Ciara Sheehy took her seventh successive crown in the women's equivalent.