Donegal’s Brendan Boyce finished 24th in this morning’s 35k race walk at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
The Finn Valley AC member finished in season’s best time of 2 hours, 37 minutes and 26 seconds.
Álvaro Martín from Spain won in a new national record of 2:24:30 with Brian Daniel Pintado second in 2:24:34 and Japan’s Masatora Kawano going 2:25:12 for third.
Boyce’s finish is an improvement of one from the 25th spot he finished in the 2022 World Championships in Eugene. Last year, Boyce (36) was tenth at the European Championships when finishing in 2:38:03.
He has competed at three Olympic Games, all three over 50k, while he was sixth at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, finishing in 4:07:46.
Boyce has been competing over the 35k distance following the abolition of the 50k competition after the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.
Donegal’s hopes will now rest on the shoulders of Letterkenny’s Mark English who will compete in the men’s 800 metre semi-final at 8pm tonight.
He was badly hampered in his 800m heat yesterday, but the Finn Valley athlete ran a huge race to get back up for 4th place in a season’s best of 1:45:71.
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