Mark English with an eye on Tokyo as he heads for National Seniors

Six weeks out from the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Mark English leads the Donegal cast for this weekend’s National Senior Track and Field Championships.

The Finn Valley AC athlete has had a stellar year so far, but it is a campaign that may well be shaped by what will happen in Tokyo in September.

English has won a European Indoor 800m bronze, set a new Irish indoor 800m record and broken the outdoor version twice in 2025.

He heads for Santry on the back of a seventh-placed finish at the Novuna London Athletics Meet, a Diamond League date two weeks ago. There, in a loaded 800m field, English clocked the third fastest time of his career in going 1:44.07.

“I was kind of annoyed with how I ran the first 200m,” English told Donegal Live of that race. “I think athletes can be their own hardest critics and I’m no exception. I just knew in my head what I could have done in that race.”

English has entries this weekend in both 800m and the 400m. He has a personal best of 46.19 seconds over 400m and may well fancy an attempt over the one-lap distance. A possible joust with the likes of Cillin Greene, Chris O’Donnell and Jack Raftery would certainly add some intrigue to matters. 

English, who had a recent spell in the Sierra Nevada mountains, will return to altitude in the coming weeks again in advance of the Worlds.

He said: “Sierra Nevada went very well. I felt really good and that showed in the last 400m (in London) I was in a good place. 

“The last 600m…I had a very good last 400m, around 52.7 seconds, probably the quickest last 400m I ever ran. It was good, but it was just annoying to know that there is a quicker time in me. I did want to run quicker and I think a low 1:43 is achievable this season.”

The 32-year-old doctor has broken the Irish record twice this summer, going sub-1:44 for the first time when clocking 1:43.92 at the FBK Games in Hengelo, Netherlands in June having gone 1:44.34 at the Irena Szewińska Memorial in Bydgoszcz, Poland 10 nights earlier.

His new partnership with coach Justin Rinaldi and the Fast 8 Track Club has been showing good dividends.

English has won 18 Irish senior gold medals over 800m - nine indoor and nine outdoor.

There are some notable absentees from Donegal ahead of this weekend’s seniors, although Arlene Crossan (Finn Valley) and Lucy McGlynn (Tir Chonaill) are both entered for the 400m hurdles while Crossan - who ran in the 4x400m relay final at the European Indoors - is also on the list for the 400m.

Elsa Moore, the Lifford-Strabane AC athlete bound for McNeese State University in the United States, for the new collegiate term, will go in the 3000m while Fintan Dewhirst will hope to shake off an injury after the recent European U23s to give the 400m hurdles a rattle.

The Gallen sisters, Adrienne and Caoimhe, also of Lifford-Strabane AC, will take to a variety of throwing events and Tir Chonaill AC’s Jack Murphy, a silver medallist at the national U23s, will go in the pole vault.

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John Kelly, who competed at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, is back from Scandinavia to compete this weekend and his Finn Valley club-mate Sommer Lecky, no stranger to national podiums, is in the high jump mix.

Finn Valley AC’s Riona Doherty will debut in the seniors after an excellent period at the age group levels and will join her club-mate and Donegal record holder Lauren Callaghan - the national indoor gold medallist in January - in the long jump.