24 Irish athletes selected to compete at European Indoor Championships

Former medallists Mark English and Ciara Mageean will spearhead the Ireland team in Torun, Poland

Fresh from his national indoor 800m record in Abbotstown on Saturday, Mark English (right) will race the men’s 800m in Torun, where he will be joined by senior championship debut Cian McPhillips (left). Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Athletics Ireland has announced a bumper team of 24 athletes for next week’s European Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, which will be spearheaded by former medallists Mark English and Ciara Mageean.

Fresh from his national indoor 800m record in Abbotstown on Saturday, English will race the men’s 800m in Torun, a distance at which he has twice won medals at this championships. 

Mageean will race the women’s 1500m, in which she won bronze at the last edition in Glasgow, though it has been an up-and-down season so far for the 28-year-old, who started with a strong 8:54.66 3,000m performance but was off her best when clocking 2:04.40 for 800m shortly after her long-time coach, Jerry Kiernan, passed away.

Beyond that duo, Phil Healy, Síofra Cléirigh-Buttner, and Nadia Power appear to hold the best medal chances for Ireland, though it will prove be a big performance if any of them make it into the six-athlete final at 400m or 800m.

Healy made a flying start to her season on Sunday by clocking an outright 400m PB of 51.99 in Abbotstown, while Power has been in tremendous form of late, breaking the Irish indoor 800m record last week with her 2:00.98 in Torun. That record was lowered again on Sunday night as Cléirigh-Buttner clocked 2:00.58 in Arkansas, and the Dubliner will have high hopes of making an impact at a senior championship for the first time.

Junior star Cian McPhillips will make his senior championship debut in the men’s 800m, and despite the 18-year-old’s outstanding run behind English on Saturday, little will be expected of him at this level with the experience likely to prove vital for his future. Another rising star Israel Olatunde will also run at his first senior championship, racing the 60m alongside Leon Reid who edged him to victory in Abbotstown on Sunday.

Emerald AC clubmates Ciara Neville and Sarah Lavin will contest the 60m and 60m hurdles respectively, while Dublin Track Club training partners Andrew Coscoran and Sean Tobin will be looking to qualify for the final at the very least in the men’s 1500m and 3,000m respectively.

Athletics Ireland High Performance Director Paul McNamara said: “It has been a remarkable indoor season so far in 2021, for many reasons, and this is reflected in both the size and quality of the team travelling to Poland. 

“Despite higher qualification standards and fewer opportunities to compete, Irish athletes nailed their opportunity when it presented itself, most notably this past weekend at the Irish Life Health Elite Micro-Meet, and we now have an unprecedented 24 athletes who have earned selection for the 2021 European Athletics Indoor Championships, with many more who have posted qualification standards missing out due to the three-athlete-per-event limit.”

Ireland team: 60m: Leon Reid, Israel Olatunde, Dean Adams, Ciara Neville, Joan Healy, Molly Scott; 400m: Phil Healy, Sophie Becker, Sharlene Mawdsley; 800m: Mark English, Cian McPhillips, John Fitzsimons, Nadia Power, Síofra Cléirigh-Buttner, Georgie Hartigan; 1500m: Andrew Coscoran, Paul Robinson, Luke McCann, Ciara Mageean; 3,000m: John Travers, Seán Tobin, Darragh McElhinney, Michelle Finn; 60m hurdles: Sarah Lavin.