Mark English stays on track for medal at the European Indoor Championships

Mark English advanced to the 800m semi-finals by running an impressive 1:48.10 at the European Indoor Championships in Prague yesterday.

“I wanted to be on the shoulder of the leader but it went out way too quick,” said English on the change of his intended tactics. “I knew it went out too quick after 150m. There’s no point in me racing out in 24 seconds (for the first 200m). I knew those guys who led out the first three spots would come back to me. I just had to bide my time and went through 400 in 53 seconds. I knew they would come back to me in the last 200m.”

And that is what transpired in a somewhat scrappy race for the UCD student but he showed a good turn of speed coming to the final bend and could ease down in the finishing straight ahead of the Dutch man Thijmen Kupers in 1:48.16. “I had a good acceleration off that bend,” confirmed English. “I was able to get by Kupers who’s a world (indoor) finalist with a little bit of ease. That bodes well.”

The Letterkenny native looks in good stead and a medal looks well within his compass.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he responded on what lies ahead. “It depends how the draw goes as well. (Marcin) Lewandowski looked strong in his heat so he’ll be a big challenger. I haven’t seen the rest of them and I assume the Swedish guy (Andreas Almgren) is through as well. I always want to make the final and then just see how it goes from there. I think if I do make that final I’m in with a very good shot though because I’ve got the championship final experience. I’ve proven that I can put three rounds back to back. I have that bit of pedigree in me at the minute.”

Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski remains the favourite and he won his heat comfortably in 1:48.56. Slovakia’s Jozef Repcik and Sweden’s Andreas Almgren looked dangerous going 1-2 in their heat in 1:50.21 and 1:50.64 respectively.

Declan Murray (Clonliffe Harriers) made it a good morning as he qualified automatically for the semi-final also in second in 1:49.69. A little earlier Ciara Everard (UCD) made the cut for the women’s semi-final finishing third in her heat in a season’s best of 2:02.69 – just outside her national record of 2:02.54. Russia’s Yekatarina Poistogova won the heat in 2:01.44.

Tipperary’s Dara Kervick (Clonlfife Harriers AC) won his 400m heat in 47.03 but faded to fourth in his evening semi-final against crowd favourite Pavel Maslak who won in 46.46.

Kervick improved his time from the morning to 46.96 which ranked him 7th overall. “I’m happy. I’m nearly in a final. What more could you want?” he said contentedly with his first major international appearance.

Leitrim’s Gerard O’Donnell (Carrick On Suir AC) didn’t have the same positive experience on his debut finishing sixth in heat one of the 60m Hurdles in 8.06 seconds.

“I’ve no excuses,” said O’Donnell. “I just didn’t run my best and I didn’t stay relaxed and I ended up chasing. It was a subpar performance.”

Paul Pollock (Annadale Striders) ran a personal best of 7:58.78 in the first heat of the 3,000m for 10th.

The first gold medal of the championships went to Great Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the women’s pentathlon with a total of 5,000 points – agonisingly 13 shy of Nataliya Dobrynska’s world record.

“I’ve been tearing my brains out these last couple of weeks thinking I could get the world record so to come so close, yeah I’m disappointed.” said Johnson-Thompson who needed to run 2:11.86 in the 800m in the final event but came up short with 2:12.78. It was still a British record and she turned in some excellent performances with 8.18 seconds in the 60m hurdles, 1.95m in the high jump, 12.32m in the shot put and 6.89m in the long jump.

John Travers (Donore Harriers) and Danny Mooney (Letterkenny) take to the boards this morning in the men’s 1500m while half milers Everard, Murray and English will return in the evening in a bid to make their respective finals.