'It's about trying to realise my potential': Mark English

Precision is everything in the life of Mark English.

There are no margins for error in his chosen profession – he is a medical doctor off the track.

On the track, he is an 800m specialist, an event where every hundredth of a second matters.

Next Wednesday, when English lines up at the Olympic Games, the hope is that those little pieces of the jigsaw knit perfectly in place.

These Olympics in Paris, which will represent his third time on this stage, have been on the end of his laser focus for some time now.

Earlier this year, English side-stepped both the Irish Indoor and the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

Instead, his world orbited the Olympic Games in Paris.

A qualified doctor, the Finn Valley AC athlete put his professional career on hold in the autumn of 2023. He had been working in St Michael's Hospital in Dun Laoghaire as part of his medical training scheme, but pressed pause in pursuit of the Olympics.

“I owed it to myself, I think, with the Olympics coming up,” the Letterkenny man says from the pre-Olympic camp in Fontainebleau.

“I have my own personal ambitions. I don't like telling anyone what they are. It's better to keep them to myself, but I do have my own expectations.

“It's about trying to realise my potential. That comes back to the expectations that I have inside my own head.”

When English qualified for the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, it was in late June, 2021 – the eleventh hour in terms of booking a spot at the Olympics, delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In Castellon, Spain, English clocked 1:44.71 to take out the 26-year-old record of 1:44.82 held by David Matthews.

On his way to Paris, English lowered his own mark twice in the space of 72 hours. First, English ran 1:44.69 in Turku, Finlan, before going 1:44.53 at Meeting Madrid.

“It meant a lot to break the Irish record again,” he says. “There have been a lot of good 800m runners, the likes of David Matthews and James Nolan, who is coaching at my old university (UCD) now.

“There were a lot of experienced guys like David Campbell. Breaking the record again was a validation that the training I was doing was right and my different approaches were working; not just the training, but the nutrition and all the different parts around the training.

“It has all been working. I know how hard it was to break that record. I had been knocking on the door and it was validation for my approach and of my lifestyle.”

Joining up with coach Feidhlim Kelly after the reopening of sport following the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 has proved key and the MCR Group have been long-time sponsors – a sponsored diesel card certainly making the long drives a little easier.

Just before the shutters were pulled, English – having spent the previous eight years running under the UCD AC banner – signed with Finn Valley AC, for whom his aunt, Bernadette, was their first ever national champion, taking 100m and 200m titles in 1975.

Patsy McGonagle, the former Irish athletics manager, has long been an admirer of English's talents, referring to him as “the most talented athlete that we have ever produced in the north west of Ireland. Ever.”

English – now the holder of four European senior medals and 18 Irish titles - first buzzed on McGonagle's radar when going 48.02 seconds to win the U19 400m at the 2011 National Juvenile Championships.

In the wake of winning European bronze – his fourth continental medal - in 2022, English was recruited by PACE Sports Management, the company of Milford native and former Finn Valley athlete Ricky Simms.

That summer, he clocked the fastest Championship 800m ever run by an Irish athlete when going 1:44.76 at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

With the aid of Simms, an Asics contract arrived and the link-up with PACE has proved valuable in gaining entry into some world class races

“Ricky has been really good for getting me into races and when he rings me up, it's a genuine conversation,” says English, for whom close family have been invaluable on his journey.

“The support has allowed me to try and excel,” he says.

In front of empty stands at the Japan National Stadium three years ago, English exited when going 1:46.59 in his heat In Rio at the 2016 version, he advanced from his heat in 1:46.40 and a 1:45.93 semi-final saw him miss out on a final spot. “

Since Tokyo, from a training standpoint a lot of it has been making sure that my speed is on point,” English says.

“I've done a lot of work at Sport Ireland, and the strength and conditioning work is going well at the minute.

“I've focussed on the power side of it and the endurance, I'm probably doing shorter intervals than I would have in the past. It's tough sometimes combining it as you can't do everything in one week so it can be spread over a 10 or 11-day period.”

The two-lap contest has, like most track and field events, evolved considerably over the years – even since English first laced runners in Letterkenny.

Djamel Sedjati from Algeria posted the world lead time for 2024 at a Diamond League meet in Monaco in June, going 1:41.46.

“The 800m is like a see-saw,” English says.

“You have speed at one end and endurance on the other. If you go too far on one it'll tip over. You need to get the balance right and a lot more athletes understand that now.

“To run quick times, they realise that you need to go out harder. If you look at the race from Monaco (Diamond League), the leader was out in 48/49 – and that leaves a much bigger reserve. It's about getting to 400m and 600m quicker. There has been a bit of a shift in that globally.”

English will have a sizeable support at the Stade de France when he enters the area on Wednesday, August 7 for the heats of the men's 800m.

“My family are all heading out and it's really exciting with Paris being so close,” he says. “Tokyo was so far away and no-one was allowed in the stadium. It's really nice for people close to me to be able to go.

“Nothing changes for me coming up to the Games. I'll still fit in my main training sessions. The volume goes down a bit and it tapers. Everyone in the camp is motivated and there's a good atmosphere.

“The 800m is a lot of moving parts. I have put together the work so it's about refining that now.”