Breege Connolly achieves Rio Olympics marathon qualifying time

Breege Connolly improved her marathon personal best to 2:37.29

North Belfast athlete Breege Connolly achieved the Olympic qualifying standard at Sunday's London Marathon.

Leitrim native Connolly's time of two hours 37 minutes and 29 seconds was comfortably inside the Rio Games standard of two hours and 42 minutes.

Connolly's time left her just outside the top 20 finishers in the women's race in the prestigious city marathon.

Her performance cut almost two minutes off her previous best of 2:39.23 set in London two years ago.

City of Derry Spartans athlete Greg Roberts clocked a time of 2:24.05 in the men's race.