For the third time in 10 days Mark English has produced another world class performance, winning the 800 metres at the Karlstad Grand Prix in Sweden, the latest stop on the World Athletics Continental Tour.
The Nordic conditions on this occasion weren’t favourable for super-fast times but still English took the win in 1:46.50, beating local favourite Andreas Kramer into second place.
This follows his 1:45.22 clocking when finishing a close second at the Madrid stop on the Continental Tour just last Saturday, that time just .02 of a second off the automatic qualifying time for next month’s Tokyo Olympics, and also his fastest time anywhere since 2014, and fifth fastest of all time. The 28-year-old qualified doctor also qualified for Rio 2016.
These latest series of times, including 1:45.70 he clocked in Sweden last Sunday week, have put the Finn Valley AC runner inside the Olympic qualifying quote, with places to spare. English will next target this weekend’s National Championships, having been denied entry by Athletics Ireland last year due to Covid-19 protocols, with the cut-off date for qualification June 29th.
Recent runs in places like Madrid have also brought Sarah Lavin closer to the quota, after she become only the second Irish woman ever to break 13 seconds for the 100m hurdles, with a time of 12.95 seconds. Others such as Sarah Healy have also moved into spot, the young Dublin runner producing another time of 4:07.63 for 1,500m over the weekend, and Tokyo now beckons for her too if she can top that off with a national title at the weekend.
