Sarah Healy flies to 1500m win in Finland

COURAGEOUS RUN: Sarah Healy of Ireland. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Sarah Healy produced a run every bit as courageous as it was classy to win the 1500m at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland on Tuesday evening. 

The 22-year-old Dubliner played a patient game through the first three laps then assumed command, turning the gears on her rivals and digging in down the home straight to record her first ever win at a Continental Tour Gold meeting.

Healy clocked 4:03.85 to edge Italy’s Gaia Sabbatini and Britain’s Ellie Baker in a photo finish. “It went out slower than I expected and I was behind the pacemaker, I wanted a nice even race but in the second half I just thought about winning it,” she said. “I went for it with 300m to go and just hung on.” 

Healy has switched coaches this year and now trains under the guidance of Trevor Painter in Wigan, where she’s been based for much of the past month since finishing her final exams at UCD. Painter is the coach of British 800m star Keely Hodgkinson.

“I had an amazing coach at home in Eoghan (Marnell) but it was more about environment, it wasn’t his fault I didn’t have many training partners,” said Healy. 

“I wanted a more social setup and I’m around amazing training partners. I’m enjoying it and they’re really good at giving me confidence. We train really, really hard so I feel ready for these.” 

Sarah Lavin produced a strong run in her 100m hurdles heat, clocking 12.87, but wasn’t fully satisfied with her final, where she was fourth in 12.94.

“It was a very good heat run, a good start, and I was hoping to go a bit quicker in the final but my start wasn’t good,” said Lavin, who ran 12.86 last week in Poland. “To have thrown out two 12.8s is good with two months to the (World) championship.” 

Thomas Barr was well below his best in the 400m hurdles, the 2016 Olympic finalist finishing fifth in 49.50. 

“I can definitely feel the travel and just the training in the legs,” said Barr, who has raced six times on three continents over the past six weeks. 

“I’m just a little bit flat. I was on the back foot from the first hurdle and trying to claw my way back into the race. In the second half I did but at that stage it was too late. I’m looking forward to getting back into training.” 

Barr will race at next week’s European Games in Poland before a sustained training block.

Mark English turned in an off-colour performance in the men’s 800m, the second successive race that was too bad to be true from an athlete of his calibre – a four-time European medallist. He finished eighth in 1:50.29, with something clearly amiss given he was struggling to maintain contact with the pack through the opening half.

Meanwhile, the Olympic Federation of Ireland has named an athletics team of 44 for the European Games in Chorzow, Poland, next week, which will incorporate the European Team Championships. Ireland will compete in division three from Tuesday to Thursday, with what is a largely developmental team, but one that includes more seasoned figures like Thomas Barr, Sarah Lavin, Phil Healy and Israel Olatunde, whose presence should offer enough to secure promotion.

Paul McNamara, Athletics Ireland Director of High Performance, said: “The European Team Championships is an outstanding event with a novel team format that differentiates it from other major championships. It is akin to the European Cross Country Championships in that it provides a gauge of our standing in European Athletics.

“The format gives an opportunity to emerging athletes to compete alongside many of our very best, and all compete with the overall aim of team success. We find ourselves in Division three as a result of having skipped this event in 2021, due to Covid restrictions, and we have the sole aim of earning automatic promotion.”