Ciara Mageean aiming to make history over 800m

Ciara Mageean will bid to become the first Irish woman to break two minutes for 800m when she lines out at the Morton Games in Dublin this evening.

The annual international meeting at the home of track and field, named after the famous athletics promoter Billy Morton, has grown in stature in recent years.

UCD’s Ciara Mageean, coached by Jerry Kiernan, is the poster girl for the event, and for good reason. Last summer, the Portaferry native bagged bronze over 1,500m at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam and then was narrowly beaten on the line by England’s Alex Bell over 800m at the Morton Games.