Anna Boyle will compete in the 200 metres

The heats, which were due to be staged on Thursday morning, were cancelled due to a lack of entries so Boyle and Ciara Sheehy progressed automatically.

Paul Brizzel's challenge ended at the second round stage on Wednesday night.

He ran a season's best 20.84 in his heat but a hamstring pull saw him pull out after 20m of his second round race.

Paul Hession qualified for Thursday's semi-finals by clocking 20.80 in his second round race.

Joanne Cuddihy qualified for Thursday's woman's 400m final while Liam Reale was a creditable eighth in the 1500m final.

Brizzel clocked a season's best of 20.84 to squeeze into the fourth automatic qualifying spot in the morning heat won by Briton Marlon Devonish (20.53).

Brizzel went into the heat as the sixth fastest of the hopefuls this year but he produced his best run since 2003.

Hession (20.81) had also qualified for the second round but Gary Ryan (21.14) bowed out.

Brizzel produced a great finish to pip from World Championship finalists Marcin Urbas (20.87) for the final qualifying spot.

The Ballymena man set his personal best of 20.54 in 2000 but he went into Wednesday's heats with a season's best of 20.95.

However after his brave morning run, Brizzel's draw in lane one did him few favours although in the event, he didn't even make it around the curve.

Brizzel cut .11secs off his season's best in the first round

In the women's 400m, Ireland's Joanne Cuddihy produced another impressive personal best to qualify for Thursday's final.

Cuddihy's time of 51.09 left her in third place in the semi-final and cut .21secs off her PB set last month in the Irish Championships and was only .02 outside Karen Shinkins' national record.

The performance means Cuddihy becomes the first Irishwoman to qualify for the European 400m final since Ballymena & Antrim stalwart Maeve Kyle achieved the feat in 1962.

Liam Reale finished a solid eighth in the men's 1500m final behind France's Mehdi Baala who successfully defended his title by comfortably holding off Ivan Hesko of the Ukraine.

Reale clocked 3:42.65 which left him 3.63 seconds down on winner Baala.

World Indoor 60m hurdles champion O'Rourke has qualified for the semi-finals of the 100m hurdles after she impressed in her heat, finishing in a time of 13:03.

O'Rourke finished second in heat two behind Russia's Aleksandra Antonova, and showed the kind of form that could earn her a place in the final.

Both Roisin McGettigan and Fionnuala Britton failed to progress from the heat stages of the women's 3000m steeplechase.

McGettigan was unlucky not to qualify from her heat as she finished in fifth place in a time of 9:47.37.