Saturday promises to be another ‘edge of the seat’ day for Irish athletics fans with an Olympic Mixed 4 x 400m final to look forward to in the afternoon.
Mark English (Finn Valley AC) will get the ball rolling for Team Ireland on the second day of athletics action. English comes into the heats of the 800m in the form of his life, having broken the Irish 800 record which had stood since 1995.
That performance followed on from an indoor season which saw the Finn Valley athlete break his own Irish indoor 800m record as he built towards qualification for these games.
English will go in heat 5 at 02.22am and will be looking to use all his big race experience as he targets one of the 3 automatic qualification places on offer. There are also a further 6 fastest qualification spots available for athletes competing across the 6 heats.
Sarah Lavin has been on fire over the 100m Hurdles this season, with the Emerald AC athlete breaking that sub 13 second milestone in style earlier this year with a brilliant 12.95PB to join Derval O’Rourke in the sub 13 seconds club.
Lavin goes in heat 2 at 02.53am and will likely need to challenge the sub 13 second mark to claim one of the 4 automatic qualification places. The next 4 fastest (q) from the 5 heats will also progress to the semi-finals on Sunday afternoon.
All eyes will then turn to that Mixed 4 x 400m relay final set for 13.35pm (Irish time). The team of Cillin Greene (Galway City Harriers AC), Chris O’Donnell (North Sligo AC), Phil Healy (Bandon AC), Sophie Becker (Raheny Shamrock AC), Robert McDonnell (Galway City Harriers AC), and Cliodhna Manning (Kilkenny City Harriers) will take to the track full of confidence, knowing that 3 of the 9 teams in the final will walk away with Olympic medals. The Irish team go from lane 5 and it’s likely that they will need to once again threaten today’s 3.12.88 to get amongst the contenders. Best of luck to all athlete and coaches.
#TeamIreland
