Ciara Mageean maintains impressive Olympics build-up by winning Irish 1500m title

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Ciara Mageean is tracked by Kelly Neely at SantryImage source, Inpho
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Ciara Mageean held off Sara Treacy to win the women's 1500m title at Santry

Ciara Mageean continued her impressive build-up towards the Olympics as she won the women's 1500m title at the Irish Championships at Santry.

Mageean's winning time of 4:24.33 left her almost two seconds ahead of Rio steeplechase qualifier Sara Treacy, who won the title year.

Kelly Neely completed the podium positions with a 4:27.68 clocking.

Another Olympic qualifier Kerry O'Flaherty had to settle for second spot in the steeplechase.

Ireland's third Rio qualifier Michelle Finn triumphed in 9:46.81 - 12 seconds ahead of county Down runner O'Flaherty.

Smyth and Foster win 100m titles

Paralympic star Jason Smyth and his fellow Northern Ireland athlete Amy Foster won the 100m titles but the wet conditions meant that times and distances were down in most events.

Smyth took the men's title in 10.71 seconds as he finished 0.04 ahead of Ballymena & Antrim's Jonathan Browning.

Foster clinched another women's title in 11.83 seconds after clocking 11.76 in her semi-final.

Ben Reynolds will hope to have done enough to earn selection on the European Championships team to be announced on Monday after clocking a season's best of 13.89 to win the 110m hurdles.

Image source, Inpho
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Mark English had to work hard to win the 800m title

English to skip Europeans after 800m win

Rio hopeful Letterkenny man Mark English made a winning return to action in the 800m but had to work hard to win in 1:51.48 as he finished just ahead of Declan Murray (1:51.70) and Karl Griffin (1:51.83).

English revealed afterwards that he will not run at the Europeans as he aims to build up his fitness ahead of the Olympics.

Tomas Barr also showed that he is edging back to fitness after injury as he took a sixth 400m hurdles title with a decent time of 50.28 in the conditions and the Waterford man will compete in Amsterdam.

Barr's time left him 1.02 seconds ahead of Northern Ireland's Commonwealth Games athlete Jason Harvey.

County Derry long jumper Adam McMullen won another national title with a leap of 7.52m while Monaghan runner Conor Duffy (14:32.85) held off City of Derry's Conor Bradley in the 5000m.

Race of the day came in the men's 400m where the first six finishers all ran under 47 seconds.

Brian Gregan took the title in 46.28 seconds ahead of Craig Lynch (46.40), David Gillick (46.44), Richard Morrissey (46.68), Queen's University's Andrew Mellon (46.80) and Zak Curran (46.96).

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