Ciara Mageean shattered her own Northern Ireland senior record last night as she surged to victory at the AIT International Grand Prix.
The Portaferry runner starred in the Women’s 3000m with a time of 8:48.27.
Mageean claimed the stadium record and a massive personal best in a hotly contested race against Great Britain’s Rosie Clarke.
The two women battled each other from the start, with Ciara clinching first place and Rosie finishing second in 8:49.49.
After being the first female from Northern Ireland to become a finalist at last year’s World Championships in Doha, Mageean has once again proved that her training for Tokyo is well underway.
Coach Steve Vernon said: "Ciara’s training is going really well ahead of Tokyo.
"She started the year with a four-week altitude camp and we are still in a heavy phase of winter work so a few indoor races have been nice to break up this training phase.
"Being consistent and staying healthy is the priority so that she arrives in Tokyo in the best shape possible!"
Mageean's new record time is only five and a half seconds from the 2009 Irish National record set by Mary Cullen in 2009 and brings her to third place in the Irish Indoors all-time list.
City of Lisburn AC’s Erin Fisher competed in the Senior Women’s Long Jump, finishing in fourth place with a PB of 5.51m, while in the Men’s Senior 400m, Northern Ireland’s Andrew Mellon (Crusaders AC) finished in sixth place in a time of 48.69.
