A breakthrough run by Maeve O’Neill has continued the Irish indoor record-breaking spree, the 21-year-old Cork athlete improving the 800m mark which had stood for five years.
A student at Providence College in Rhode Island, O’Neill clocked 2:00.33 in Boston on Sunday night, eclipsing the 2:00.58 set by Síofra Cléirigh Büttner in 2021.
O’Neill’s effort is also inside the automatic qualifying time for next month’s World Indoor Championships in Poland, set for March 20th-22nd. However, it’s not certain whether she will compete in Torun as her priority for now will be the NCAA Indoor Championships the weekend prior.
A member of Doheny AC in Cork, O’Neill’s time also improves the under-23 indoor record, which was twice reduced last month when Emma Moore from Galway City Harriers brought it to 2:01.21.
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At the same Boston meeting, James Gormley clocked a personal best for the mile, finishing third in 3:53.38 to move to eighth on the Irish indoor all-time list.
O’Neill joined the list of senior Irish record breakers so far this season, which also includes Bori Akinola (60m), Mark English (800m), Andrew Coscoran (1,500m), Diarmuid O’Connor (heptathlon), Rhasidat Adeleke (300m) and Elizabeth Ndudi (long jump).
Akinola, English and Coscoran are expected to compete at this weekend’s National Indoor Championships in Abbotstown, with Sunday’s session already sold out.
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Qualification for the World Indoor Championships is via automatic standards or the event quotas, the closing date for which is March 8th.
Ireland’s Kate O’Connor is well within the current quota for the women’s pentathlon, currently ranked second, although she’s yet to compete since winning silver in the heptathlon at the World Championships last September.
Elsewhere, Luke McCann continued his comeback after surgery with a victory over 800m in Ourense, Spain, running an indoor best of 1:47.64.
