All the noise beforehand was how ruthlessly cut-throat the qualification would be in the men’s 800 metres. In the World Championship event where raw speed meets sheer endurance, only the strongest survive.
Mark English knew that already. The 32-year-old from Letterkenny, competing for the seventh successive time on this global stage, is enjoying the season of his life, but still needed to call on that vast experience to nail third place in his qualifying heat.
Which only magnified the performance of Cian McPhillips in winning the heat before, as the 23-year-old from Longford, competing in his first outdoor world championships, produced the so far best race of his life. Plenty of seemingly stronger runners didn’t survive.
Together their progression to the 800m semi-finals proved the Irish high point on day four in Tokyo, as Sarah Healy by her own admission “can do better” than finishing 10th in the 1,500m final, running 3:59.14, as her race “fell apart in the end”.
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For the 24-year-old Dubliner that chance will undoubtedly come again, as the gold medal went to Faith Kipyegon for the fourth time, the 31-year-old Kenyan clocking 3:52.15 and still unbeaten at the distance in four years.
Sharlene Mawdsley was also left hungry for more, the 27-year-old from Tipperary ending up eighth in her semi-final of the 400m, losing three places down the homestretch. That race was won by Sydney McLoughlin-Levrone, the world record holder in the 400m hurdles, who exactly 19 years to the day, ran 48.29 seconds to break the US record of 48.70 which had stood to Sanya Richards-Ross since 2006.
English and McPhillips will be back inside the National Stadium on Thursday (1.45pm Irish time), their 800m semi-finals even more cut-throat: only the top two in the three semi-finals, plus the two fastest non-qualifiers, progress, and for English the draw is unquestionably more daunting.
No Irish man or woman has made an 800m final at the World Championships, but there’s never been an Irish heat winner either. McPhillips claimed that honour, winning the fourth of the seven heats in 1:44.91, affording himself a fist pump as he crossed the line, as well he might.
Undaunted by the world-class experience of his opposition, he was sitting in fifth at the bell, passed in 52 seconds, before moving majestically up to third around the final bend, then kicking into the lead down the homestretch to get past Bryce Hoppel from the US, and Tyrice Taylor from Jamaica, who took second and third. Peter Bol from Australia, who has run 1:42.55, faded to fourth.
“It’s pretty scary when you see your heat draw, and you’re in with 1:42, 1:43 guys, miles ahead of my season best,” said McPhllips, who also paid tribute to his long-time coach Joe Ryan. “Thankfully I think I just came into shape at the right time, I’ve a great coaching set up behind me, so I think we just made the right calls, at the right time, to make sure I was peaking for this.”
On his semi-final prospects, he added: “It’ll be the best quality race I’ve ever been in by a million miles. But I’ll just do what I did there, throw myself into the mix, and see what happens.”
As expected, English would have to chase Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi from Kenya, who controlled the second lap to win in 1:45.06. English also moved confidently into second down the homestretch, but was passed by Italy’s Francesco Pernici, who nailed second just ahead of him in 1:45.11.
That didn’t do English any favours come the semi-final draw, as he’ll face Wanyonyi again, plus defending champion Marco Arop from Canada, and Olympic bronze medallist Djamel Sedjati from Algeria. Arop looks vulnerable, however, and English still has a chance, a repeat of his Irish record of 1:43.37 likely to put him in the mix.
“I’d have liked to have held on to second,” he said. “Wanyonyi is Olympic champion, it was always going to be tough to beat him, but it was a good race. I’ll give it everything now for the semi-final on Thursday. I’m ready for anyone in that stifling heat out there.”
For Healy, already given a final reprieve after a disqualification from her semi-final, the all-conquering front-running of Kipyegon would normally have suited her. Lacking some of the spark that saw her win the European Indoor 3,000m back in March, Healy was holding seventh at the bell, before dropping back over the last 200m.
“Tenth is still a big achievement,” Healy said. “But how I felt is a little disappointing, and how I executed that race. I’ve run those splits before and finished a lot better but today, I didn’t have the legs any more. I raced really well for 1,250 metres and just fell apart a bit in the end. I know I can do better.”
Kipyegon’s team-mate Dorcus Wwoi won silver in 3:54.92, Jessica Hull from Australia holding on for bronze in 3:55.16. Healy can take some heart given Ciara Mageean also finished 10th in this event in 2019, before improving to fourth in 2023, then winning the European title a year later.
Mawdsley was already bullish about coming back stronger next year, though she still has the 4x400m relay to come: “This year was never smooth sailing, and this is where I’m at,” she said. “But I’m working my way up the ranks, hungry for it, this year I’ve been fighting through to the line, I’m proud of that.”
