Ireland's Sarah Healy came home a strong sixth in the 3000m at the World Indoor Championships on Saturday morning.
Healy had earlier this month taken gold in the European event, putting in a superb performance in Apeldoorn to claim her first senior European medal.
The European champion made a strong start to Saturday's race in Nanjing, China but was ultimately left scrambling in the closing laps, as the stacked field ramped up the pace.
The 24-year-old Dubliner came home in 8:40.00, just under 10 seconds off the Irish record of 8:30.79 she set earlier this year. Her time was faster than that which won her the European gold and came in an extremely competitive field.
Gold was taken by Ethiopia's Freweyni Hailu, while Australia's Jessica Hull in bronze. The runner between them - American Shelby Houlihan - was a contentious presence in the race, due to a chequered past with doping.
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Sarah Healy 6th in World Indoor Championship 3000m final
2nd-placed runner Shelby Houlihan only returned from a four-year doping ban in January of this year.
Houlihan was banned just before the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for the steroid nandrolone.
The Iowa natived missed her shot at two Olympic Games due to the ban. Houlihan also had a bizarre explanation for her positive test, suggesting that a dodgy pork burrito was to blame.
Speaking in 2021, Houlihan said:
We concluded that the most likely explanation was a burrito purchased and consumed approximately 10 hours before that drug test from an authentic Mexican food truck that serves pig offal near my house in Beaverton, Oregon.
Houlihan suggested that nandrolone occurs in pigs and could have been carried through the burrito into her positive test. It was a line questioned by several experts at the time.
Though the American runner insisted that she had never taken performance enhancing drugs and repeated her line that the positive result was accidental, the four-year ban speaks for itself.
British athletics legend Paula Radcliffe spoke sense on what the presence of Houlihan would have done for the likes of Sarah Healy in Saturday's race.
It's something for the competitors to get their heads around. but it's also something that's out of their control. They would have seen what's happening and had their own opinions on what happened, whether that's valid or not.
Shelby herself has spoken about the excuse that she made with the tainted burritos was pretty much grasping at straws. She didn't know how that gotten into her system.
Like I said, the women who are out there racing, they really have to go out there and try and execute the best race for them and not get caught up in the hype surrounding it.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Irishman Andrew Coscoran also came home 6th in the men's 3000m, matching his result from the European Indoors.
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