For over 40 years the Irish mile records, indoors and outdoors, had stood alone like some glittering relics from another time and place. That was before Andrew Coscoran ran faster than both marks in setting a new Irish mile record with a stunning run at the 117th Millrose Games in New York on Saturday night.
It proved a historic night on several fronts, Coscoran’s 3:49.26 in finishing seventh in the famed Wanamaker mile eclipsing by over half a second the previous Irish marks held by Eamonn Coghlan and Ray Flynn, while Yared Nuguse from the US became the first man to break 3:47 indoors, winning in a new world indoor record of 3:46.63.
Coscoran’s time also came hot on the heels of Mark English and Sarah Healy improving their own Irish indoor records over 800m and 3,000m respectively, English smashing 1:46 indoors for the first time when running 1:45.15, the third fastest by a European so far this season.
Coghlan and Flynn were both present at The Armory on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Coghlan as the previous seven-time winner of the Wanamaker Mile, while Flynn is the Millrose Games meeting director. Both were among the first to congratulate 28-year-old Coscoran, his 3:49.26 finally rewriting Coghlan’s Irish indoor mark of 3:49.78 set in 1983 (and a then world indoor record which stood for 14 years). Flynn’s outdoor marginally faster outright mark of 3:49.77 was set back in 1982 in the Dream Mile in Oslo.
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On an exceptional night for indoor running, Nuguse was closely followed home by US team-mate Hobbs Kessler, who ran 3:46.90 and was also inside the previous world indoor mark of 3:47.01, set by Yomif Kejelcha from Ethiopia in 2019. Cam Myers from Australia also set an outright world under-20 mile record, the 18-year-old coming home third in 3:47.48.
Coscoran’s mile record also comes a week after he broke the Irish indoor 3,000m record in Boston, running 7:30.75, the Dublin athlete clearly benefiting from his recent change to his training set-up. He is now coached by Helen Clitheroe at the New Balance Team in Manchester, but also enjoyed a productive spell of altitude training in Flagstaff in Arizona prior to the indoor season.
At 31, English has also changed set-up over the winter and is now working with Australian coach Justin Rinaldi. His 1:45.15 on Saturday night left him a close fourth in a world-class 800m field. Josh Hoey took the win in a US record of 1:43.90, while English improved his own indoor mark of 1:46.10 set at the Sport Ireland Arena in Abbotstown back in 2021.
Shortly before that run, Healy produced one the best performances of her senior career to date, finishing third in the 3,000m in 8:30.79, also taking over four seconds off her own Irish record of 8:35.19, also set in Boston last Sunday. Victory there went to Whittni Morgan from the US in 8:28.03, with Healy, who turns 24 next week, out-kicking Olympic 1,500m silver medallist Jessica Hull from Australia into fourth.
For Coscoran, English and Healy, all three performances will clearly put them in the mix at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands early next month, with the World Indoor Championships in China two weeks' later also an option.
Among the other highlights of the Millrose Games was Grant Fisher from the US running 7:22.91 to break Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma’s world indoor 3,000m record of 7:23.81, with his US team-mate Cole Hocker also dipping under that old mark with his 7:23.14 second-place finish
Closer to home, Sharlene Mawdsley continued her impressive start to the indoor season in Metz in France, finishing second overall in the women’s 400m. The Tipperary athlete won her heat in 51.86, with only Lieke Klaver of the Netherlands running faster when winning her heat in 51.70.
Jodie McCann improved her personal best to finish sixth in the 1,500m, her 4:09.18 moving her up to third on the Irish indoor all-time list for the event behind Healy and Ciara Mageean, while Darragh McElhinney was also sixth in the men’s 3000m in a season’s best time of 7:45.25.
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