Claire McCarthy from Cork runs an Olympic qualifying time in the Prague Marathon

The Prague Marathon was held last Sunday the 8th of May 2016 in the Czech Republic with almost 5,800 runners taking part. The first Irish person home was Claire McCarthy of Leevale AC in Cork who ran an impressive time of 2h 42m 04s.

This was well inside the 2:45 Olympic qualifying time for the marathon in Rio. Claire's time however is unlikely to see her secure one of the three spots available for an Irish team.

These are the times posted already by Irish women and as you can see, Claire has the 6th fastest time...

Lizzie Lee        IRL    2:32:51    Berlin (GER)    27.09.2015
Fionnuala McCormack   IRL  2:33:15 Chicago IL (USA)    11.10.2015
Breege Connolly        IRL    2:37:29    London (GBR)    26.04.2015
Gladys Ganiel O'Neill    IRL    2:38:53    Sevilla (ESP)    21.02.2016
Barbara Sanchez        IRL    2:39:49    Sevilla (ESP)    21.02.2016
Claire McCarthy        IRL    2:42:04    Praha (CZE)    08.05.2016
Caitriona Jennings        IRL    2:44:33    Rotterdam (NED)    10.04.2016   

 If you're wondering just how fast that is then it's 6:11 per mile for 26.2 miles!

Claire was the 12th woman home and second in her category.

1 Cruz NONATA DA SILVA    2:41:09 F16    BRA    W40
2 Claire Mc CARTHY    2:42:04 F29    IRL    W40
3 Susanne Bornmar    2:59:43 F305    SWE    W40 

Irish results from the indoor athletics meet in Prague...Tues 25th Feb 2014

Three Irish athletes were in action at an athletics indoor meeting in the Czech capital Prague on Tuesday evening the 25th of February 2014. Both Ciara Everard and Rose-Ann Galligan were within two seconds of the Irish indoor record of 2:02.54. In the mens 300m, David McCarthy of West Waterford AC finished in 7:54.39, about three seconds away from his personal best of 7:51.24.

Women 800m
1    Jennifer Meadows    810417    Great Britain    MR2:01.67       
2    Lenka Masná    850422    Czech Republic    2:01.83       
3    Yekaterina Poistogova    910301    Russia    2:02.98       
4    Ciara Everard    900710    Ireland    SB2:04.02       
5    Irina Maracheva    840929    Russia    2:04.08       
6    Yevgeniya Zinurova    821216    Russia    2:04.11       
7    Rose-Anne Galligan    871209    Ireland    2:04.12       
8    Anastasiya Tkachuk    930420    Ukraine    2:05.15       
9    Fabienne Kohlmann    891106    Germany    2:06.28       
10    Edao Dureti    965408    Ethiopia    2:06.87       

Men 3000m
1    Koech Paul Kipsiele    811110    Kenya    MR07:47.20       
2    Yegor Nikolayev    880212    Russia    SB07:49.99       
3    Yitayal Atnafu    930120    Ethiopia    SB07:52.41       
4    Debeli Gezmu    960414    Ethiopia    PB07:53.04       
5    Jakub Holuša    880220    Czech Republic    PB07:53.21       
6    David McCarthy    880803    Ireland    SB07:54.39       
7    Mitko Tsenov    930613    Bulgaria    08:00.80       
Volodymyr Kyts    870115    Ukraine    DQ163.3a   

The best performance of the meeting was probably that of Russian Ivan Ukhov who set a new European indoor record of 2.42 metres in the high jump...