The Fast Lane - English, Mageean, and Lavin all in action

Mark English of Finn Valley AC, who skipped the national championships last weekend because of injury worries made a return to the track on Saturday (August 5) at the Folksam Grand Prix in Malmö, Sweden where he finished fourth in the men’s 800m in 1:47.20.

Along with Ciara Mageean of City of Lisburn AC, English is one of the senior members of the Irish team selected for the World  Track and Field Championships Championships, starting in Budapest on  Saturday August 10 and continuing until Sunday August 27. Ferrybank AC’s  Thomas Barr has withdrawn from the team with a calf injury. 

On Friday, Sarah Lavin of Emerald AC, who will also compete in Budapest,  ran  a new personal best 12.67 for fifth in the 100m hurdles at the CITIUS Meeting in Bern, Switzerland. The time was just two-hundredths of a second off Derval O’Rourke’s 12.65 Irish record. Race winner in a national record time of 12.47 was Ditaji Kambundji of Switzerland, who is currently ranked 14th in the world. Lavin is ranked just two places behind her.

At the same meet,  Sophie O’Sullivan of Ballymore Cobh AC  finished fourth in the rarely-run 1,000m distance, clocking a national U23 record time of 2:37.08.  In the 100m, former Irish 100m and 200m champion Ciara Neville of Emerald AC in Limerick, who was running her first race in two years,  finished fifth in 11.90 secs.

At the Flanders Cup  meet in Leuven, Belgium, also on Saturday, Kelly McGrory of Tír Chonaill AC finished third in the women’s 400m hurdles in 58.97 seconds. McGrory  has been selected for the women’s 4x400m relay squad for Budapest.