No Joy for Mark English In The 800m Final

There was no joy for Mark English in the 800m final at the European U23 Athletics Championships in Tallinn who had to settle for 8th in 1:50.42. There was, however, plenty of positives for the Irish with Karl Griffin finishing in 6th place in the same race in 1:48.79 and national U23 records for the men's and women's 4x100m relay teams.

English (UCD) has been struggling for form of late with a sciatic injury proving problematic. The Donegal man managed to get through the heats and semi-finals but ultimately ran out of steam. On the other hand Karl Griffin (UCD) produced his best ever championship performance.

"Coming off the final bend the medal was in touching distance," said Griffin who is eligible to compete in these championships again in two years time. "It's a great learning curve for me and make me hungry for coming back here in two years' time and hopefully go further."

The Irish women's 4x100m relay team of Sarah McCarthy (Mid Sutton), Cliodhna Manning (Kilkenny City Harriers), Sarah Lavin (UCD) and Phil Healy (Bandon/UCC) qualified for the final with a second place finish in their heat and a new U23 record of 44.68. They were unable to get the baton around in the final with a baton mix-up in the first exchange between McCarthy and Manning.

The men's 4x100m relay team of Jonathan Browning (Ballymena & Antrim), Eanna Madden (Carrick-On-Shannon), Kieran Elliot (North Sligo) and Marcus Lawler (St Laurence O'Toole's) finished third in their heat in a national U23 record of 40.11 and went faster again in the final to finish 5th in 39.89.

High Performance Director Kevin Ankrom was pleased overall with the Irish performance. "Let's not butter it up you want Mark English to win a medal and I'm sure no one is more disappointed than Mark," said Ankrom. "I think overall as a team there's a lot of good buzz. Again you want your stars to shine in one night but it doesn't always happen. Overall it was a good performance and we are now consistently competing in finals."

There was no joy for Irish athletes on the final day of competition at the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea. Adam McMullen (UU) and Kevin Batt (Adams State University) contested the long jump and 5,000m finals. McMullen jumped a best of 7.61m good enough for 10th place while Barr finished 9th in a time of 14.28.74.

Overall it was a very positive week for the Irish athletes at the games, along with Thomas Barr (University of Limerick) stunning gold medal in the 400m hurdles all five track and field athletes made their respective finals. Ciara Everard (UCD AC) placed sixth in the 800m final and John Travers (Athlone IT) finished ninth in the 1500m final. The Irish team return home on Monday, 13th of July to Dublin Airport at 5.40pm.

Kerry O'Flaherty (Newcastle AC), Michelle Finn (Leevale AC) and Sarah Treacy (Dunboyne AC) all achieved the Olympic standard in the 3,000m steeplechase (9.45.00) for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games at the Letterkenny Sub 4 Minute International. O'Flaherty ran a time of 9.42.61, Finn - 9.43.34 and Treacy recorded a time of 9.44.14. The times for O'Flaherty and Finn were also inside the world championship standard of 9.44.00 for the World Championships in Beijing in August.