Ciara Mageean & Mark English win Bronze medals at Euro Indoor Championships

Two of Ireland's best athletes won Bronze medals at the European Indoor Athletic Championships in Glasgow.

Ciara Mageean finished 3rd in the women's 1500m final.

Bronze on the double for Ireland as Ciara Mageean comes third in the 1500 metres at the European Indoor Athletic Championships #RTEsport pic.twitter.com/GUrumcoXzH

— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 3, 2019

Mark English finished 3rd in the men's 800m final.

It is a bronze medal for Mark English in the 800 metres at the European Indoor Championships #RTEsport pic.twitter.com/soHvuBGwSp

— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 3, 2019

Schedule for the 2017 European Indoor Championships...Fri 3rd - Sun 5th March

The 2017 European Indoor Championships are being held in Belgrade this weekend and the events with Irish athletes in them is shown below. One event to watch is the women's 1500m. Ciara Mageean is one of the best 1500m athletes in Europe and is a definite medal hope.

Results and live streams on the European Athletics Website.

Day 1...Fri 3rd March 2017
8:45: Phil Healy and Sinead Denny 400m women heats...both out
9:20: Brian Gregan 400m men heats...slowest qualifier for semi-final
10:35: Zak Curran 800m men round 1...out
12:20: Ben Reynolds 60m hurdles men round 1
15:45: Ben Reynolds 60m hurdles men semi-final
16:05: Ciara Mageean and Kerry O’Flaherty 1500m women round 1
16:45: Phil Healy and Sinead Denny 400m women semi-final
17:05: Brian Gregan 400m men semi-final
17:25: Tomas Cotter 3,000m men round 1
18:15: John Travers 1500m men round 1
19:10: Ben Reynolds 60m hurdles men final

Day 2...Sat 4th March 2017
8:45: Ciara Neville and Phil Healy 60m women’s heat
18:25: Zak Curran 800m men semi-final
18:45 Ciara Mageean 1500m women final
19:18 John Travers 1500m men final

Day 3...Sun 5th March 2017
15:00 Ciara Neville and Phil Healy 60m women semi-final
15:55: Tomas Cotter 3,000m men final
16:50 Zak Curran 800m men final
17:10 Ciara Neville and Phil Healy 60m women final

Mark English wins Silver at the European Indoor Championships in Prague

At the final day of the European Indoor Championships in Prague, Mark English from Donegal finished second in the final of the 800m to take Silver.

This was Mark's second major medal having won Bronze in the 800m at the European Championships in Zurich in 2014.

The race video is available on the RTE Player service ...pull the slider forward to 25:00 mins.

Post race interview...

Photo Credit : James Veale of West Waterford AC

Fionnuala Britton wins bronze in the Euro 3000m indoors...

In a brilliant piece of running, Fionnuala Britton won a bronze medal today in the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Gothenborg, Sweden. With 12 athletes starting the 3000m race on a 6 lane track, Fionnuala stayed at the back of the pack early on to stay out of trouble. When the surge eventually came, she went with the front runners and a group of four opened up a gap on the rest of the field. At the end, Fionnuala put in a blistering final lap to finish ahead of the Russian athlete to take Bronze.

After the race, Fionnuala said....."I’m so happy I didn’t come fourth as it was so close between us and the danger people were all amongst the medals. When you come away with a medal, a medal is a medal and it is not easy to get any of them. You take what you can get and move on I suppose. When you get a medal you love it and you want to come back. It is such a short season that it goes by so fast. It’s a good confidence boost (ahead of the World Cross-Country Championships in Poland later this month) and it’s good preparation.”

Will Downing has a post race interview here....

Ciarán Ó Lionáird wins bronze at the Euro Indoor Championships...

In the final of the mens 3,000m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Gothenborg , Sweden, Ciarán Ó Lionáird finished in a personal best time of 7:50.40 to finish third for the bronze medal.

Ciarán pictured with Ciarán Ó Catháin, president of Athletics Ireland. Photo by Kieran Carlin of Finn Valley AC

For most of the race, Ciarán stayed near the back of the pack out of trouble and picked up the pace with about 400m to go when he followed the eventual winner Ibrahimov. At the bell and 200m to go, it seemed as if it was a two horse race but the Spaniard Juan Higuero surged in the last few metres to take the silver.

Considering all the injury problems that he had in 2012, Ciarán is really beginning to show what a fantastic talent he is.

Post race interview with Will Downing here...


For the other Irish athletes today, it was a mixed bag. Fionnuala Britton in the 3000m went through to the final and Amy Foster went through to the 60m semi-finals.

Ciara Everard in the 800m finished 3rd in the womens 800m and also went through to the final. It was however a photo finish for that last qualifying spot...

As you can see, Ciara is #6. I'm not sure how they separated them but Ciara got the nod.

In the other 800m semi-final, Rose-Anne Galligan went out after finishing 5th but ran a personal best time in the process.

In the mens 400m, there was some drama as Brian Gregan got spiked as the field converged after 150 metres. Just before the 200m mark, the Ukrainian athlete Burakov stood on Gregan's shoe and spiked him in the process....

...an injury that required several stitches. Hopefully, it won't be any more serious than that.

In a post race interview, Brian Gregan said......“My raceplan was to get to the bend, and to get to the break third. My plan was going perfect, with perfect pace, around 21.6-21.7 to the bell. Unfortunately I got spiked. A guy just completely took me out of it, and there was no coming back from it. He actually stood on my ankle and ripped me down my leg. I’ve had nine stitches. It was poor form.”

Full results for today in an earlier post.