Elizabeth Egan | Sep 18, 2026
Falling right at the end of the track season, there is a bumper entry for this weekend’s World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen, particularly in the Road Mile and the 5km, which were added to the stand-alone Half Marathon Championships at the last edition in Riga in 2023.
Among the 441 participants is a strong team of Irish athletes, headlined by European 1500m bronze medallist Andrew Coscoran, who will race the mile, and Peter Lynch, the Irish record holder over the marathon, and the first man to break 60 minutes for the Half Marathon – the distance he will race in the Danish capital – in any conditions.
Coscoran will be joined in the mile by Cathal Doyle, who ran 4:53.33 for a Road Mile in Germany two weeks ago. Irish 5000m record holder Brian Fay, and Darragh McElhinney, the second fastest Irish man over that distance, will both contest the 5000m.
Sarah Healy and Laura Nicholson will race the women’s Road Mile, while Lynch will be joined in the Half Marathon by Hiko Tonosa.
The Road Mile is the only event in which Ireland has the potential for a scoring team, but all four athletes must finish. Each nation can only run two athletes in each of the shorter races, and the placings of the four athletes will be added together to decide the winning mixed team.
The same team scoring applies in the 5000m, while there are separate men’s and women’s team prizes in the marathon, with the top three athletes to score.
For most of the Irish athletes, this will be their final race of the season. For Lynch, however, this is just the beginning as he builds towards the New York marathon on 1st November, where he will be hoping to repeat the form which saw him finish top 10 at the London Marathon in April. Tonosa, will also likely compete in an autumn marathon.
Among the world stars entered to compete this weekend are Freweyni Hailu and Sarah Billings (Women's Mile), Yared Nuguse (Men's Mile), Gimmy Gressier and Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Men's 5km), Agnes Ngetich (Women's Half Marathon) and Andreas Almgren, Nicholas Kipkorir and Daniel Ebonyo (Men's Half Marathon).
The Men's Mile should be particularly interesting to watch, with 58 starters battling for space (just 35 started in Riga three years ago). The course is straight apart from a pair of right-hand turns approximately two-thirds of the way through. This may well be point at which medals are won and lost.
The Half Marathons also have big fields compared to the last edition, with 131 athletes due to start the men's race (97 competed in Riga), while there are 111 on the women's startlist (72 in Riga).
Sophie O'Sullivan, originally selected for Copenhagen, has opted instead to compete in the 800m at the Athlos Meeting in London, a Continental Tour Silver event for women only.
O’Sullivan has shown incredible form over that distance this year, breaking two minutes in each of her last three outings, and just missing Ciara Mageean’s Irish record when she ran 1:58.60 in Brescia on 30 August.
European Silver Medallist Rhasidat Adeleke, who just missed the final of the 200m at the World Ultimate Championships in Budapest last weekend, will also race that distance at the Stone X Stadium in north London.
The US collegiate Cross Country season continues to gather pace, and a small number of Irish athletes will open their season there on Friday and Saturday. Check out the TrackAthletes NCAA page for more.
Sunday’s Griffith Avenue Mile on Sunday will incorporate the National Road Mile Championships, the first time Irish titles will be contested at this distance on the roads. The Irish Life Dublin Half Marathon, part of the Dublin Marathon Race Series, will also take place in the Phoenix Park on Sunday.
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