DONEGAL’S MARK ENGLISH broke the Irish 800m by just over a tenth of a second and beat the automatic Olympic qualifying mark in Castello, Spain, to seal his spot at the Tokyo Olympics at the 11th hour.
The Finn Valley AC man ran a time of 1:44.71 to book his seat on the plane, with Tokyo entries due to close at midnight tonight.
English finished second this evening at the Trofeo Diputación Memorial Cansino behind Algeria’s Yassine Hethat (1:44:25).
Brilliant 800m run from Mark English in Spain. 1:44.71 qualifies him for the Olympics AND it's a new Irish record by 0.11! pic.twitter.com/ql1RUAjpPT
— PJ Browne (@P_J_Browne) June 29, 2021
The Irishman’s time beat a 26-year-old national record held by David Matthews.
English, 28, is a three-time European medalist and will now not have to rely on his world/qualification ranking to get him to Tokyo.
He had been sitting in 48th, with 48 athletes assured of a spot at the Games. However, after several weeks of strong performances with which he knocked on the door, he finally sealed the deal this evening and chalked down a new national record for good measure.
