Mark English first of the Irish track athletes in action

Mark English will be the first Irish athlete to take to the track in the Olympic Stadium this afternoon, the 23-year-old getting his campaign under way in the sixth heat of the men’s 800m at 2:55pm Irish time.

Mark English first of the Irish track athletes in action

English, who has been blighted by injuries for much of the year, is ranked fourth out of eight competitors based on his season’s best of 1:45.36, but will need to finish in the top three to advance automatically to tomorrow night’s semi-final.

“All I can do is focus on producing the best version of myself,” he said. “The rounds are going to be extremely tough but I would like to make it through the heats and give it a good lash in the semi-final. The 800m is extremely tough this year. It’s more competitive than it was in 2015.” English, who finished 10th at the World Championships in Beijing last year, missed out on the 2012 Games after only securing the B standard for 800m, so will make his Olympic debut when he takes to the track this afternoon. “I certainly wanted to be out there in 2012 and I knew I could be competitive because there were guys who made that semi-final who I had been beaten,” he said. “But it made me hungry. If I made London, who knows where my motivation would have been at that young age? It kept me striving for Rio.” The UCD medical student took time out from his studies earlir this year, halving his academic workload in a bid to reach peak form in time for the Games, but he has faced a race against time to recover his fitness after suffering a stress fracture in his metatarsal in March. However, he returned to form on his most recent outing in London, running 1:45.36, a repeat of which should be enough to see him through to the semi-final.

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