With their championship medals already in the bag Sarah Healy and Sommer Lecky get to enjoy a sort of homecoming at the Morton Games in Santry on Thursday.
It will also mark the last race of the season for Healy, the 17-year-old from Blackrock who earlier this month won a European Under-18 double over 1,500m/3,000m and remained unbeaten in her grade all year. Here, Healy faces a proper international field which suitably includes the reigning European Under-20 champion, Britain’s Jemma Reekie, who won that title in Grosseto, Italy last year.
Reekie finished second in the recent British championships and ran 4.09.05 to place third at the World Cup in London at the weekend, marginally faster that Healy’s best 4.09.25. Not much there so.
Lecky also gets to jump in front of a home crowd just days after winning silver at the World Under-20 championships in Tampere, Finland. The Finn Valley athlete cleared 1.90m to secure that medal and gets to test herself against seniors such as 2016 Rio Olympian Alyx Treasure from Canada and former American collegiate champion Liz Patterson.
For the Irish senior athletes, Santry offers to chance to underline their form ahead of the European Championships in Berlin next month. Phil Healy moves up to 400m, before concentrating on the 100m/200m in Berlin. Ciara Mageean drops down to 800m, aiming for the 1,500m in Berlin having won bronze in Amsterdam two years ago: that race features the very best of the Irish including Claire Mooney and Siofra Cleirigh-Buttner.
Mark English also races 800m after several weeks of training at high altitude in Spain, facing off against World Indoor champion Boris Berian of the USA. Marcus Lawler runs the 100m, having become the second fastest Irish man over 200m in Cork on Monday with his 20.40.
The headline race, the Morton Mile, features another stellar field, including the American Lopez Lomong, current national 10,000m champion with a mile best 3.51.45. Last year, the top 12 finishers all ran sub-four, including Clonmel AC's Sean Tobin, who ran 3:58.70. John Travers is also back having run sub-for in the event before. Track events begin at 6.50, with the international programme starting at 7.30.
