York runner Richard Buck bows out of World Indoor Championships (From York Press)

York runner Richard Buck bows out of World Indoor Championships

11:30am Saturday 10th March 2012 in Athletics

Updated: CITY of York Athletics Club star Richard Buck was in positive mood despite missing out on the final of the individual 400 metres at the World Indoor Championships in Turkey.

The 25-year-old finished third in his semi-final last night, clocking 46.68 seconds to finish behind the two qualifiers, the defending champion Chris Brown and Pavel Maslak.

Buck, who had earlier finished second in his heat in Istanbul, said: “It is frustrating.

“I put myself in a good position and felt I was going to have enough. That is just the way it plays out indoors sometimes.

“I am definitely moving forward.

“It is really, really positive. I have improved my personal best indoors and I am getting closer to the top six in the world.”

Buck is expected to line up for Great Britain in the 4x400m relay heats at 11.20am today.

The final is scheduled for 3.40pm tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Jessica Ennis was forced to settle for silver in the defence of her pentathlon title.

Ennis led by 86 points after the 60m hurdles and 109 following the high jump, but saw her lead cut to just ten points despite a new personal best in the shot.

A sub-par performance in the long jump, where jumps of 6.19m and 6.18m were followed by a foul in the final round, then left Ennis 93 points behind Ukraine’s Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska – who won the long jump with 6.57m – going into the final event.

That meant the 26-year-old needed to beat Dobrynska by a sizeable margin over 800m and she came agonisingly close thanks to a new personal best of two minutes 08.09 seconds, with Dobrynska just over three seconds behind in third.

Dobrynska set a new indoor world record of 5,013 points, with Ennis recording a new personal best just 48 points behind.

Meanwhile, three of Britain’s best hopes for medals safely advanced from a packed first day.

World 5,000-metre champion Mo Farah was made to work harder than he would have liked to reach the final of the 3,000 metres, while Dwain Chambers had a far easier time in reaching the semi-finals in the defence of his 60m title.

Shana Cox qualified for the final of the women’s 400m.