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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Michael Scully

Mark English books Tokyo qualification by breaking long-standing Irish 800m record in Spain

Mark English has booked his seat on the plane to Tokyo after breaking an Irish record that stood for 26 years.

English, 28, finished in second place in the 800m in Castellón tonight in a time of 1:44.71, taking .11 off the record held by David Matthews since 1995.

It was the culmination of a string of impressive runs by the Donegal man and, with just hours to spare, the Finn Valley AC athlete beat his own previous best of 1:44.84 set eight years ago to qualify for the Olympics.

Sarah Lavin also hopes to have done enough to make the Games after producing a 100m Hurdle time of 13.16 in Lucerne.

Sarah Lavin (©INPHO/Bryan Keane)

Eilish Flanagan is on the verge of qualification after finishing second in the 3000m Steeplechase at the same meet in Switzerland.

And it's the same waiting game for Andrew Coscoran, who finished eighth in the 1500m in a time of 3:43:15 and is holding onto one of the final slots for Tokyo.

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