Tokyo 2020: Team Ireland profiles - Mark English (Athletics)

Highlight of the season breakin David Matthews’s long standing Irish 800m record

Mark English  at the 2019 World Athletics Championships. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Mark English at the 2019 World Athletics Championships. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho

Age: 28

Event: 800m

Club: Finn Valley AC

Three-time European medal winner, twice indoors, he saved his best performance of the season until just prior to Tokyo, clocking a brilliant 1:44.71 which broke David Matthews's long standing Irish 800m record of 1:44.82 which had stood since 1995. This time was inside the 1:45.20 standard needed to secure automatic qualification for Tokyo. English competed at the Rio Olympics in 2016, bowing out at the semi-final stage.

Ian O'Riordan

Ian O'Riordan

Ian O'Riordan is an Irish Times sports journalist writing on athletics