Coming up this weekend

This weekend’s two big events see five Irish Olympians in action. Another is among those hopeful of securing a spot in the NCAA Div I finals. A sprinkling of other events have a sprinkling of other Irish athletes in action. Here’s a quick summary of what to look forward to.

Irena Szewińska Memorial, Bydgoszcz

On Friday, Mark English (800m), Cathal Doyle (1500m) and Jodie McCann (1500m) will all compete at the Irena Szewińska Memorial (Continental Tour Gold) in Bydgoszcz. Both English and Doyle have accumulated considerable Road to Tokyo ranking points already, with English best of those who haven’t achieved the Auto Q. Neither were far off their personal bests when they opened their seasons last week, and bettering the respective qualification standards of 1:44.50 and 3:33.00 would be a nice bonus at this point in the summer.

The 1500m appears to be a tune-up outing for McCann who is set to race over 5000m at the Trond Mohn Games (Continental Tour Silver) on Tuesday. There she’ll be hoping to run fast enough and finish high enough to elevate herself back within the quota spots for Tokyo.

Bydgoszcz will be broadcast on the World Athletics Website from 6-8pm, Irish time.

Grand Slam Track, Philadelphia

Sharlene Mawdsley will get her first taste of Grand Slam Track racing when she competes in the long sprints group in Philadelphia on Saturday (400m) and Sunday (200m). She’ll be up against Olympic Champion Marileidy Paulino, among others.

Andrew Coscoran stunned the field when winning the 3000m last time round. While he won’t have to race the 5000m too this time, there is only half the prize money on the line, and Grant Fisher, and the rest, will likely be prepared for his speedy finishing kick.

Mawdsley already has the Auto Q in the 400m for Tokyo, but she may well be looking to revise her 2023 200m PB of 23.18.

Coscoran too, is already sitting on a Tokyo Auto Q in the 1500m, though he has mentioned looking to secure qualification over 5000m too (he is currently sitting in a quota spot). Sunday’s race, however, is unlikely to be fast enough to improve his ranking.

NCAA Regional Qualifiers/first round (Florida and Texas)

At the time of writing, Diarmuid O'Connor (Decathlon), Seán Mockler (Hammer Throw) and Shane Brosnan (10,000m) have already secured their spot at the NCAA National finals, which will take place in Eugene from 11-14 June.

Sophie O'Sullivan, Laura Nicholson and James Dunne (all 1500m) are among the others looking to join them at the Regional qualifiers, which conclude in Florida (East) and Texas (West) on Friday and Saturday.

You can follow the East qualifiers here and the West qualifiers here.

Other in action

Cillian Kirwan and James Gormley (in Karlsruhe on Saturday), Lauren Callaghan and Conor Murphy (in Nice on Saturday), Saragh Buggy (in Lier on Saturday) and Anna Gavigan (in Loughborough on Sunday) are among others competing this weekend. Keep an eye on the homepage over the weekend for other additions, as some startlists have not yet been released.

This weekend runs straight into a busy mid-week programme with Brian Fay and Mark English set to compete in Rovereto and Sommer Lecky, Callum Baird, Oisin Lynch and Christopher Sibanda in San Vito al Tagliamento on Monday, McCann (as previously mentioned) and John Kelly in Bergen on Tuesday, and others throughout the week.

Athletes Mentioned: