Mark English was inches off a Personal Best as he qualified for the semi-finals of the 800m at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon.
The Finn Valley athlete had a superb run to narrowly finish 4th in his heat, but also recorded a Season’s Best, running 1:44.76 at the Hayward Field in Eugene.
It is the fastest time ever run by an Irishman in a Championship race.
The Letterkenny man started in lane 7 and was well positioned in second place until less than 200m to go when the pace quickened.
English did keep up with the front runners however, and put in a terrific performance which was only six one hundredths of a second off his Personal Best to come 4th behind Canadian Marco Arop, who won with a 1:44.56.
Arop is ranked 4th in the world and was just ahead of USA’s Kenyan born Jonah Arech, who ran a PB of 1:44.62, while Mexico’s Jesus Tonatiu Lopez was in third.
