Strong Irish team looking to build on recent successes at World Indoor Championships
Elizabeth Egan | Mar 18, 2026
An eleven-strong Irish team will travel to the twenty-second edition of the World Indoor Championships in Toruń, Poland, this weekend, with serious medal aspirations.
Kate O’Connor, who won silver in the Pentathlon last time out, will look to at least emulate that performance, but others, too, have outside medal chances.
Below are mini-profiles of each of the Irish athletes participating, with details on their current form, Road to Toruń journey, and what they may need to do to qualify for this summer's major championships.
All sessions of the World Indoor Championships will be shown live on Virgin Media. The broadcast schedule, links to startlists and live results, and an Irish-specific timetable can be found on TrackAthletes.ie.
A few Irish athletes will open their outdoor season at collegiate events in the US this weekend. Meetings with Irish interest will be added to the TrackAthletes calendar page as startlists become available.
Lauren Roy
Lauren Roy (women's 60m) comes into the World Indoors in the form of her life, having run 7.19 for 60m (=2nd Irish all-time), the distance she will race this weekend, and 22.89 (2nd Irish all-time) over 200m already this year.
Roy surpassed the Athletics Ireland B standard for Toruń when she ran 7.25 on 17 January, a time that would ultimately have been good enough to make the cutoff, but she ensured her selection when she bettered the 7.20 automatic standard in Spokane on 27 February.
Roy was a member of the Irish 4x100m team that broke the national 4x100m relay record at the Diamond League meeting in London last July. She was also part of the relay team at the 2022 World Championship in Eugene, and was on the squad that won 4x100m relay silver at the 2018 World U20 Championship.
Roy competed at the European Indoor Championship in Glasgow in 2019 (also over 60m), has twice represented Ireland at the European Team Championships, and went close to making the 200m final at last summer’s FISU World University Games.
She has already surpassed the 200m Athletics Ireland B standard for this summer’s European Championships and is close to the automatic qualification standard of 22.85. She will also look to make the Northern Ireland team for the Commonwealth Games this summer.
Ciara Neville
Ciara Neville (women's 60m) bridges a five-year gap when she returns to Toruń, the site of her last major championships – the European Indoors – in 2021. She went close to making the Olympics later that year and, in the process, suffered a serious hamstring injury that later required surgery.
It’s taken Neville a long time to return to the form of 2021, and to build on the promise shown when she made the World Indoor Championships in 2017 as a 17-year old, and as a member of the silver-medal-winning 4x100m team at the 2018 World U20 Championships.
But the reigning National 60m and 100m champion will go into Saturday morning’s 60m heats off the back of an incredibly consistent indoor season. She improved her nine-year-old 7.30 personal best to 7.28, then 7.27, then 7.26 this year, and equalled or surpassed the 7.30 Athletics Ireland B standard on five occasions. Indeed, the 7.35 she ran in the heats of the National Indoors is the slowest she’s gone all season.
Neville’s indoor runs – two of which can count for 100m ranking purposes – together with her National senior win last August, give her a good start on the Road to Birmingham. She will next need to run the Athletics Ireland B standard of 11.35 or quicker and be ranked within the top 36 in Europe to make that team. A run of 11.18, the Automatic standard, or faster would all but guarantee selection.
Bori Akinola
Bori Akinola (men's 60m) is the reigning National 100m and National Indoor 60m Champion, as well as the national 60m record holder.
Akinola was undefeated in his six races in January, including World Indoor Tour wins in Lyon and Glasgow. In February, he added the national record (6.54) and a second-place finish at the World Indoor Tour gold meeting in Belgrade, before retaining his national title and finishing third at the World Indoor Tour silver meeting in Berlin earlier this month.
He was a member of the Irish 4x100m relay team that broke a 25-year-old national record last summer, but a niggle in warm-up meant that he missed out when the team further upgraded the mark a week later.
Having competed with the relay team at the European Championships in Rome in 2024, Akinola made his individual debut in the 60m at the European Indoors in Apeldoorn last year, where he finished 11th overall.
The UCD AC athlete already has the Athletics Ireland B standard for the European Championships over 100m, and his performances in Belgrade and Berlin give him a healthy foundation on which to build his ranking points. He currently sits 16th on the Road to Birmingham, and a final position within the top 36 would likely see him selected. The relay team, currently ranked ninth, also looks likely to qualify.
Mark English
Mark English (men's 800m) started the year with a new national 600m record, and followed it shortly after with two new marks over 800m. He hasn’t, however, raced since finishing third and breaking the national record in the World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava on 3 February, having sat out the National Indoors with a niggle.
English has a stunning record at European level, adding indoor bronze in 2025 to the medals he won in 2019 (bronze) and 2015 (silver), and the bronze medals he won outdoors in 2022 and 2014. He has yet to make a global final indoors or out.
English bagged the Auto Q for Toruń in his first 800m of the season in Luxembourg on 18 January, and has had the qualification standard for the European Championships since 12 August last year. Not having to chase times or ranking points affords English the chance to arrive at the main events ready to contend.
English is ranked fifth in the field based on personal bests, and in the absence of World Record holder Josh Hoey, will be looking to finally make his mark on the world stage.
Maeve O’Neill
Maeve O’Neill (women's 800m) has been in scintillating form all winter, running 1:28.09 for 600m in early December, and 2:41.07 for 1,000m in early January before running 2:01.96 for 800m, an outright PB, in late January. She further improved her 800m PB - and the national indoor record -with 2:00.33 on 22 February.
Toruń will be the senior international debut for the Cork athlete, who this past weekend just missed out on the final of the NCAA Division I Indoor Championships. O’Neill won bronze at the Irish National Senior Championships last summer, but her 2026 performances to date have elevated her to the top echelon of Irish 800m running.
O’Neill has the Athletics Ireland B standard secured for this summer’s European Championships and will spend the coming months collecting ranking points and/or chasing the 1:59.80 Automatic qualification standard alongside her college racing commitments in the US. Sub-2 will, no doubt, also be on her mind.
Emma Moore
Emma Moore (women's 800m) will be making her senior international debut in Toruń after starting the season with a bang. She solo ran a 2:02.39 in Abbotstown on 17 December and looked at home when racing her first World Indoor tour meeting in Luxembourg a month later.
Moore secured the Athletics Ireland B standard for Toruń and further lowered her personal best and broke the National U23 record (since lowered by O’Neill) when she ran 2:01.21 at the NIA on 28 January, and got a taste of World Indoor Tour Gold racing in Ostrava a week later.
The Galway native will need to run 2:00.95 (the Athletics Ireland B standard) or faster to qualify for this summer’s European Championships in Birmingham, something that looks well within her capabilities based on early-season form, as well as gain enough ranking points to be within the quota spots. Her runs from Ostrava and Luxembourg will have helped greatly on that front.
Achieving the 1:59.80 automatic qualifier would, of course, negate the need for ranking points, though given the depth of middle-distance talent in Ireland, there may well be more than three athletes in contention for the spots come August. An exciting summer lies ahead.
James Gormley
James Gormley (men's 1500m) transferred allegiance to Ireland in 2024, having previously represented Great Britain at junior level, and made the Irish team over 3000m for both European Indoors and World Indoors in 2025.
This time round, he races the 1500m, having secured the Athletics Ireland B standard for that event, en route to the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games consideration standard for the mile, in Boston in February. The time he ran that day - 3:53.38 – places him inside the top 10 on the Irish all-time list indoors.
With the Commonwealth Games mark secured for both 1500m and 5000m, Gormley may turn his attention to making the team for the European Championships, where places in both distances will be hotly contested.
The respective Athletics Ireland B standards for Birmingham are 3:35.25 and 13:20.00, but faster may well be needed to make the team. Gormley’s bests are 3:36.25 from 2024 and 13:26.24 indoors earlier this year, but if his indoor form is anything to go by, then improving them should be a formality.
Andrew Coscoran
By 8 February, Andrew Coscoran (men's 3000m) had already run a 3000m, a mile and a 1500m split that were second only, in terms of Irish all-time performances indoors, to his own national records. He later upgraded the Irish 1500m record, with 3:33.09 and third place in Liévin.
Coscoran achieved the automatic standard for the 1500m and the 3000m in Toruń, and contested both distances at last year’s World Indoors. However, after getting the nod from the selectors, he has opted to contest just the longer distance this time.
He is ranked third in the World this year, and second in the entered field based on season’s bests, though canny racers Josh Kerr, Cole Hocker and Geordie Beamish are also in the field. Concoran will be looking to improve on his sixth place from last year, but such is the quality of the field that he could run the race of his life and leave with nothing.
Despite making the World 1500m final in September, Coscoran had to wait until 19 February to secure his first Auto Q for this summer’s European Championships. He competed in both the 1500m and the 5000m in Tokyo, and may again seek qualification over the longer distance.
His 3000m performance from January and his national 5000m win last August give him a head start on the Road to Birmingham, but the Athletics Ireland B standard of 13:20 will also need to be achieved if he has any chance of earning one of the three hotly-contested spots available.
Nick Griggs
This winter, Nick Griggs (men's 3000m) achieved two things that had, to that point, remained elusive, as he took his first European individual cross country title in December and won his first national senior title earlier this month. The world now, it seems, is his oyster.
He will, however, face formidable opposition if he is to go anywhere near adding his first senior international medal in Toruń, as he lines up for what must be one of the deepest 3000m fields in World Indoor history.
Griggs achieved the automatic standard for Toruń when finishing fourth behind Coscoran in Boston in January, and he secured his spot when winning the national title on 1 March. The time he ran in Boston - 7:32.79 - was a new national U23 record and moved him to second on the Irish all-time list.
Griggs has competed for Ireland at two senior championships before now – both outdoors and both over 1500m. He’ll be looking to make his first Indoor major a memorable one.
He has the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games consideration standard for both the mile and the 5000m, and the automatic standard for the European Championships over the longer distance.
Sarah Lavin
Sarah Lavin (60m hurdles) travels to Toruń off the back of an eighth National Indoor title. She achieved the automatic standard in her first outing of the year with the 7.98 she ran when finishing second in Paris on 25th January. This is still her fastest race of the season, but if anyone knows how to show up in form for a championship, it’s Lavin.
She is a permanent fixture in the Irish team these days, and has competed at every major championship, indoors and out, since 2021 (two Olympics, three World Championships, two European Championships, three European Indoor Championships and, after this weekend, four World Indoor Championships).
She finished fourth at the European Indoors last March and was fifth at the World Indoors in 2024. She’d desperately love to turn her consistency into silverware. The national indoor record, too, must surely one day be hers.
Lavin secured the European Championship standard at the World Championships last summer. Her performances with the record-breaking 4x100m relay team have put them in with a good chance of also qualifying for Birmingham.
Kate O’Connor
Kate O'Connor barely needs an introduction these days. Having won medals at the European Indoors, World Indoors, World University Games and World Championships in 2025, as well as adding big chunks to her national Pentathlon and national Heptathlon records, she carries medal expectations into Sunday’s event.
The Louth athlete started her year with personal bests in the two events she’s competed in thus far. She won the National Indoor long jump title with a first-round jump of 6.50m, a performance which places her third on the Irish all-time list, and gave Sarah Lavin a closer run than she’s used to in the national 60m hurdles title race.
O’Connor has already secured the Northern Ireland consideration standard for the Commonwealth Games and the Automatic Standard for the European Championships. The heptathlon at the later starts just 16 days after the heptathlon finishes, but with both events taking place in the UK, it may be an easier back-to-back challenge than on other occasions.
Before then, however, there’s a World Indoor title on the line. Anna Hall, the World Heptathlon champion, will start as favourite, but O’Connor, obviously in the form of her life, looks set to challenge. Just how much can she add to her Irish record – which currently stands at 4781 – in the process?
