British runner grasps second chance to claw his way through to men's 1500m semi-finals as Leeds-based Italian Ossama Meslek also qualifies

After finishing only 10^th in his 1500m heat on Friday, George Mills took advantage of the new repechage round 24 hours later as he secured a place in the semi-finals by finishing third in his race in 3:33.56.

With only the top three certain of qualifying in each of these new repechage races, Mills finished hard to clock 3:33.56 as Federico Riva of Italy won in 3:32.84 and Charles Philibert-Thiboutot was runner-up in 3:33.53.

“I thought ‘bloody hell, mate, you’re leaving it a bit late!’” said Mills.

Mills, who also runs the 5000m at these Games, was dead last in the first couple of laps before coolly moving through. He then found himself getting boxed and baulked in the latter stages but held his nerve to secure qualification.

“It’s what I wanted to do yesterday but I wasn’t patient enough and probably the emotions got a hold of me,” he said. “I chatted to my coach after the heat and he asked me what I thought I should do today. I told him ‘plan A but better’.”

Like Mills, Ossama Meslek is a Yorkshire athlete who lives in Leeds but he represents Italy – and he also qualified for the semi-finals in the first of the two repechage heats.

Meslek finished strongly to run 3:35.32 in third as Ireland’s Cathal Doyle won the race in 3:34.92 from Azzedine Habz of France, who clocked 3:35.10.

Behind Mills and Meslek there were a number of big-name casualties. They included Olli Hoare and Stewart McSweyn, Mario Garcia and Adel Mechaal of Spain and Sam Tanner of New Zealand.

Mills and Meslek will join the likes of Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen in Sunday’s semi-finals.

Look out for a feature on Meslek on the AW website on Sunday.

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