Siofra Cleirigh Buttner breaks 800m Irish indoor record

Siofra Cleirigh Buttner has broken Nadia Power's 800m Irish indoor record in Arkansas.

She smashed the Irish indoor record set only last Wednesday by Nadia Power with a time of 2:00:58.

Cleirigh Buttner was racing in the American Track League meeting at Fayetteville where she was second behind Heather Maclean of the USA in a close finish with victory only eluding the Irish woman by just .06 of a second as she closed hard on the lead near the finish line.

It moves Cleirigh Buttner to fourth in the European rankings as a result of her run in Arkansas with the European Indoor Championships in Torun just ten days away.

The performance comes on the back of a highly competitive 800m event at the Irish Life Health Elite Micro Meet in the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena yesterday which saw four athletes walk away with PBs.

In the last five days five different Irish athletes have posted the five fastest runs in the history of the indoor event in Ireland.

Four of those athletes - Cleirigh Buttner, Nadia Power, Georgie Hartigan and Louise Shanahan - are inside the top 20 of the World rankings which is more than any other country in the top 20.