Season's best sees Mark English into World 800m semi-finals

Mark English booked his place in the 800m semi-finals at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

The Finn Valley AC runner clocked a season’s best time of 1:45.71 to finish fourth in his heat - the second of seven heats at the National Athletics Centre in the Hungarian capital.

The four-time European medallist showed again, in spite of an injury-hampered season and a difficult race, his calibre on the big stage.

The 30-year-old had to endure an agonising wait in the Q room to see if his time would be good enough to go through as one of the fastest qualifiers.

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Botswana’s Tshepiso Masalela in 1:45.60 and Filip Ostrowski from Poland, who went 1:45.76, also went through to Thursday evening's semi-final.

English was hampered in the opening 200m of his race and was bumped by Jamaican athlete Navasky Anderson during the first lap, but demonstrated the powers of his mentality to finish well.

Mateusz Borkowski from Poland won the heat in 1:45.40 with Great Britain’s Max Burgin second in 1:45.43 and Australian Joseph Deng third in 1:45.48.

English’s previous best this season saw him go 1:46.53 in France in May. The two-time Olympian has been hit by an injury in recent times and the Letterkenny native skipped the recent National Senior Championships.

However, he returned to action when finishing fourth at the Folksam Grand Prix in Malmö - a World Athletics Continental Tour, Challenger meet. There, he finished in 1:47.20.

Earlier in the year, English had to withdraw from the European Indoor Athletics Championships due to illness.

He is trained by Feidhlim Kelly at Dublin Track Club and has taken a break from his career as a medical doctor to concentrate on his sport with the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris looming on the horizon.