Mark English claims bronze in European 800m final 

It's Ireland's second medal of the championships. 

Ireland’s Mark English after finishing third in Munich tonight. 

Mark English has claimed Ireland’s second medal of these European Championships with a bronze in the men’s 800m final.

The Donegal man had delivered two composed and confident races to make it into tonight’s field. A European bronze medallist back in 2014, he was striving to be just the fourth Irish athlete, and the first man, to claim more than the one senior podium place in these championships.

Two European indoor medals had been claimed since that outdoor success in Amsterdam eight years ago but the passing years – some of them very tough – had added to the pressure on the 29-year who came to Munich in very encouraging form.

“I never doubted it, that’s the thing about 800m, it’s up and down. Sometimes you’ll be on form, and it’s just about being thankful and grateful for all the support you get along the way.

“I’ve had a lot of people who stuck by me, my family have been rocks, my girlfriend, my training group, those close to me. That’s been brilliant to have.” He did it brilliantly, running off the shoulder of the leaders from first second to last, first when the Italian Simone Barontini injected some pace, and again when the Spaniard Mariano Garcia took the race by the scruff of the neck.

Garcia took it home too, his time of 1:44.85 going down as a PB and enough to see off the challenge of English, who clocked in at 1:45.19, and Great Britain’s Jake Wightman who added a silver medal to the gold and bronze he won at the Worlds and Commonwealths in the 1,500m.

His thoughts running down the home stretch were not complicated.

“Oh, hold on for dear life. If nothing else. I couldn’t catch the two(in front) anyway. There was nothing I could do about that so I just had to hold on the best I could. I just kept looking at the screen. I could see no-one was making moves to keep up with me and I was really happy with that.”