Mark English smashes his Irish 800m record in Budapest 

Mark English took another big step forward on Tuesday evening. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

In a season of breakthroughs, Mark English took another big step forward on Tuesday evening, the 32-year-old smashing his Irish record when finishing second over 800m in 1:43.37 at the Gyulai István Memorial, a Continental Tour Gold meeting, in Budapest.

That brought him home behind Kenya’s Laban Kipkorir Chepkwony (1:42.96), with France’s Yanis Meziane third in 1:43.71. It’s the third time English has broken his national 800m record this season, having clocked 1:44.34 in Poland in May and then 1:43.92 in Hengelo, the Netherlands, in June.

English has been in fine form since then, powering to his 10th national outdoor title over 800m earlier this month ahead of Cian McPhillips. 

“Hopefully I’ll have another race or two before the World Championships and I can’t wait for that because I’m in great shape at the minute,” he said after that race. “I’d like to be able to show it with a time.” 

After covering the first lap in just over 50 seconds in Budapest, English found himself trapped in a box with 200m to run but he bided his time and found daylight on the final bend, unleashing his typically strong finish to take the runner-up position. 

His time moved him joint-17th on the world list for 2025 and carved over half a second off his Irish record, marking the third time this season that he has run under 1:44.

English had several world-class operators behind him, with Spain’s Mariano Garcia – a former World Indoor and European champion – fourth in 1:43.84, while reigning European Indoor champion Sam Chapple was fifth in 1:43.96 and 2023 world bronze medallist Ben Pattison came home seventh in 1:44.14.

English, who won his fifth European medal by taking bronze at the European Indoors in the Netherlands in March, has never made a global final but as the countdown continues to next month’s World Championships in Tokyo, he looks to have a decent chance of doing so this year.

He has yet to announce if this will be his last season. “I don’t really like to put a clock on my career,” he said earlier in the summer. “If you think you’re retiring at a certain point, that might change how you come into a race; it might change your motivation.” 

He said part of his motivation to continue this year was to run under 1:44 for the first time.

“I wanted to get the best out of myself in terms of what I knew I was capable of doing,” he said. “I knew I had a 1:43 in me and I felt it would be very hard for me to hang up my spikes if I didn’t achieve what I knew I was capable of doing.” 

Meanwhile, Darragh McElhinney turned in another strong performance to finish seventh over 3000m in Budapest, the Cork athlete clocking 7:35.16, a PB by almost five seconds.

McElhinney turned in a superb showing in Oordegem, Belgium, on Saturday, moving second on the Irish all-time list when clocking 13:02.06 to finish eighth in the 5000m. 

The 24-year-old is targeting qualification for the World Championships over 5000m and was outside the 42-man quota in the ‘Road to Tokyo’ rankings prior to the weekend, but will move closer after his latest performances. He has until 24 August to post qualifying marks.

Elsewhere, pole vault superstar Mondo Duplantis set his 13th world record at the meeting with a 6.29m clearance, a one-centimetre increase on the world record height he cleared in Stockholm in June, the Swede going over it on his second try.