Diamond League final a key test for Sarah Healy

For Sarah Healy the mission for next month’s World Championships will be straightforward: to make the 1500m final. Pic: Paolo Bruno/Getty Images.

For Sarah Healy the mission for next month’s World Championships will be straightforward: to make the 1500m final.

But at the Diamond League final in Zurich this evening, she will face a key test that will tell her much about her chances.

To date, it’s been a season defined by consistent strength, but the 24-year-old Dubliner is still searching for that truly seismic performance – a time that would catapult her into the most elite bracket of female 1500m runners. It seems a matter of when, not if, it arrives.

Her best is the 3:57.15 she ran to finish second in Paris last month, one of four top-three finishes across this Diamond League season. But she would love to add a fifth tonight and to get close to Ciara Mageean’s Irish record of 3:55.87.

That may be unlikely, given the cool, rainy conditions forecasted in Zurich, though Healy comes into it after a lifetime best over 800m last weekend, clocking 2:00.19 in London.

Before that she clocked 3:57.95 to finish ninth at the Silesia Diamond League – her third 3:57 in a row.

“It was an OK day for me, not amazing, not too bad,” she said. “I just keep running 3:57 at the minute, but the season is going really well so far.”

She’s the sixth quickest this season in tonight’s field and while Kenyan superstar Faith Kipyegon is absent, there’s a formidable cast of rivals including Olympic 1500m silver medallist Jess Hull and Birke Haylom, a 3:53 performer.

Healy is the sole Irish competitor at the Diamond League final, where Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo will square off with Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles in the climactic event of the evening, the men’s 200m, at 8.39pm, Healy’s 1500m setting off at 6.40.

Meanwhile, Athletics Ireland has announced a provisional team of 27 athletes for next month’s World Championships in Tokyo, with Healy, Kate O’Connor and Mark English looking the leading chances.

With the withdrawal last week of Rhasidat Adeleke, who cited injury as she called a halt to her season, the team has 17 individual athletes, with eight additional members selected for the women’s and mixed 4x400m relay squads along with two non-travelling reserves.

Eight athletes achieved the automatic qualification standard, while others secured their place via their world ranking. More names could be added in the days ahead, with eight athletes provisionally selected pending potential invites from World Athletics.

Those athletes are currently outside their respective quotas based on their world ranking but could earn a place if athletes ahead of them don’t accept their spots.

The most likely to earn a place that way is Darragh McElhinney, who was 43rd on the ‘Road to Tokyo’ rankings list when the qualification deadline closed this week, just one spot outside the 42-man quota for the 5000m.

Kate O’Connor is the only Irish athlete ranked in the top 10, sitting fifth on the world lists for 2025 in the heptathlon.

Diamond League final, Zurich: Live, Virgin Media Two, 5.30pm; BBC Two, 7pm