For the third successive weekend Sarah Healy has smashed her own Irish indoor record, this time taking over two seconds off the 1,500m mark at the Keely Klassic meeting in Birmingham on Saturday.
Set up as an attack on the British indoor record by Georgia Hunter Bell, Healy’s training partner, both athletes pulled well clear of the rest of the field, Hunter Bell taking the win in 4:00.63, the Olympic bronze medal winner from Paris just short of the British record.
Healy finished right on her heels in 4:01.61, improving on the 4:03.83 she clocked in Lieven in France this time last year, having already twice improved her own 3,000m mark over the last two weekends, taking it down to 8:30.79 when finishing third in the Millrose Games last Saturday.
Just turned 24, the Dublin athlete is now ranked second fastest in Europe over 1,500m and 3,000m, and is still undecided on which of those events she’ll contest at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands next month.
Decision not to attempt Cheltenham Gold Cup-Grand National double is not mad, but it is bad for Aintree and sad for racing
National Football League permutations: Who can make league finals and who can be relegated?
Gordon D’Arcy: Ideal opportunity for Ireland to take stock and move forward with clarity
Gerry Thornley’s Six Nations Team of the Tournament: Three Irish players make the cut
Meanwhile at the Boston Valentine’s Meeting, Cian McPhillips ran the second fastest Irish indoor 800m time in finishing second in 1:45.33, the 22 year-old showing a welcome return to top form, and just off the Irish record of 1:45.15 set by Mark English at the Millrose Games the previous week.
Also in Boston, Cormac Dalton ran 13:28.29 for 5,000m to move to fourth on the Irish all-time indoor list, and later Grant Fisher from the US added another world indoor record to his tally, running a stunning 12:44.09, a five-second improvement on the previous world indoor record of 12:49.60 set by Kenenisa Bekele in 2004.
Rhasidat Adeleke blew off some winter cobwebs at the Clemson Collegiate meeting on Friday night, moving up to the rarely run indoor 600m, where she finished third in 1:30.30. Adeleke has already made clear she’ll only be dipping into some minor indoor races, all her focus building towards the 400m outdoors this summer.
