There’s no disputing it now, Andrew Coscoran smashing his own Irish 1,500 metres record with a stunning victory in Nice on Saturday night.
Clocking a brilliant 3:32.68 at The Meeting Nikaia, Coscoran improved the 3:33.49 he ran at the World Indoor Tour meeting in Birmingham back in February, at the time just about the fastest indoors or out.
They had been two of the longest-standing records in Irish athletics, Ray Flynn’s outdoor mark of 3:33.5 going back 41 years, clocked during the Dream Mile run in Oslo back in July 1982, with the previous indoor mark of 3:35.4 belonging to Marcus O’Sullivan since 1988, also clocked on route to a mile win in New Jersey in 1988.
Coscoran is now out on his own, a first sub 3:33 clocking by an Irishman, the Dublin athlete now certain of his place at the World Championships in August too.
Ireland v Fiji: TV details, kick-off time, team news and more
To contest or not to contest? That is the question for Ireland’s aerial game
Ciara Mageean speaks of ‘grieving’ process after missing Olympics
Denis Walsh: Steven Gerrard is the latest to show a glittering name isn’t worth much in management
There was another Irish Under-20 record too for teenage sensation Nick Griggs, who finished ninth in 3:36.09, having run 3:39.94 indoors, the still 18 year-old becoming the first Irish teenage to break 3:40.
Coscoran always said that someday the long-standing records would fall, and now he’s broken them twice in the same season, with the promise of more to come. He nailed the win on the night too, 18-year-old Niels Laros of the Netherlands second in a national senior record of 3:32.89.