TWO weeks out from the European Indoor Championships in Poland, Mark English returns to competitive action this weekend.
The Finn Valley 800m ace takes part in the Irish Life Health Elite Micro Meet at the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena on Saturday
English is already assured of his place on the 800m start line for the European Indoors in Toruń, but will also have designs on booking a spot at the Tokyo Olympics later in the year.
Towards the end of 2020, English linked up with a high-profile training group in Dublin.
English, a three-time European medalist who competed at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, is part of the Dublin Track Club, under the tutelage of Irish athletics coach Feidhlim Kelly.
“Mark will be looking for a good, hard run this weekend” says Finn Valley AC’s Patsy McGonagle, the former Irish Olympic Team Manager.
“He has the qualifying standard for the European Indoors and he just needs races. The indicators are that his training is going well. His big target, of course, is the Olympic Games later in 2021, but Mark will be looking for a performance in Poland.”
English won silver at the 2015 European Indoors in Prague and was the 800m bronze medalist at the 2019 edition in Glasgow.
The 2018 World Under-20 silver medalist Sommer Lecky goes in the women’s high jump while a third Finn Valley athlete, James Kelly, competes in the men’s shot put.
Both Lecky and Kelly will be gearing towards European Under-23 Championships.
McGonagle said: “They have all dealt with the difficulty of lockdown since the summer months and since the national seniors back in the summer they have knuckled down and not let it get the better of them
“They are seriously anxious to compete and they have all been working at their own training programmes.”
Sommer Lecky
The event which received Government approval via the Sport Ireland Expert Group will see athletes compete for European Indoor qualification, as well as Category E World Ranking points for all those athletes working towards Tokyo qualification. A full stream of both days will be available on the Athletics Ireland YouTube Channel.
Entry is restricted to athletes tracking towards Olympic Games qualification and European Indoor Championships qualification, including senior relay panels. A small number of additional athletes have also been invited to ensure the event is compliant with permitting requirements so that all results are valid for qualification purposes. The participation of each athlete has been approved by Government via Sport Ireland Expert Group.
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