Paul McKee, running the fastest time by a European this summer, smashed both the Irish and Northern Ireland 400 metres records at a meeting in Estonia on Sunday.

McKee erased the Irish record of 45.73 seconds set 16-years ago by Derek O'Connor with a winning time of 45.62secs in Tartu.

That left him ahead of England's Jared Deacon, who produced a season's best of 45.95secs at the Estonian venue.

Commonwealth Games hopeful McKee also lowered the Northern Ireland mark of 45.85 set by Paul McBurney in 1997.

"I was hoping to run a bit faster but I felt a bit tired after a three hours bus journey from Riga," said McKee who plans to compete in both the European Championships and Commonwealth Games.

Douglas victory

Chris Lambert - who completed a sprint double at Friday's meeting in Riga - and Dwayne Grant failed to finish the 100m after problems with their starting blocks.

Expecting the starter to recall the field when they slipped backwards, he did not - and the pair were left as spectators as Latvia's former World junior 110m gold medallist Stanislav Olijar won in a personal best 10.43secs.

Grant clocked 20.99secs for third place over 200m behind Poland's Marci Jedrusinki winner by 0.14 seconds ahead of Olijar in a time of 20.81secs.

Matt Douglas won the 400m hurdles in 50.34secs from English team mate Steve Surety who achieved a personal best of 50.48secs.

McDonagh disappoints

Meanwhile, Ireland's Peter Coghlan won the 110 metres hurdles at a meeting in Atlanta on Sunday.

Coghlan clocked 13.68 to win the event.

The Irishman had managed a wind-assisted 13.55 in the heats at the Atlanta meeting.

Irish long jumper Ciaran McDonagh will have been slightly disappointed with his mark of 7.45m in Atlanta.

McDonagh, back competing after nearly two years out because of injury, has been close to his Irish record mark of 8.00m on a couple of occasions this season.