by Larry Eder
By Cathal Dennehy
For years, Mark English has been touted as the next great Irish middle distance runner – an athlete with a talent so great and a racing brain so astute that many wise observers from the Emerald Isle burdened him with the hope and expectation that he would match, and possibly even exceed, the accomplishments of the great names of their past.
In the Letzigrund stadium in Zurich last night, the 21-year-old from Donegal showed he is well on his way to stardom – taking the bronze medal in the European 800m final in a race won by Poland’s Adam Kszczot in 1:44.13. English, a medical student at University College Dublin, only reached the final as a fastest loser, but now comes away a European medal which could well slingshot his career to the next level.
Expectations were lowered after a sub-par semi-final run, for everyone else if not for the man himself. “The semi-final took pressure off,” he said. “After that, the other guys didn’t look at me as a threat.” In athletics, as in nature, though, it is often those lurking unseen in the long grass who actually pose the biggest threat, and so it was last night as red-hot favourite Pierre-Ambroise Bosse of France was usurped not just for the title, but for a medal of any colour, by a posse of underdogs.
The Frenchman took the race out hard, passing 400m in 50.97 seconds, and stringing the field out behind him like an elastic band stretched to full capacity. As the field reached the 600m mark, though, the band recoiled and Bosse, surprisingly, had a whole lot more company than he had planned.
Poland’s Adam Kszczot shot past the Frenchman as they rounded the home turn, swiftly accelerating out to a five-metre lead and leaving no doubt as to the direction of the gold medal. Bosse, suddenly, was bankrupt and faded through the field like with the despair of an athlete broken both physically and mentally.
Back behind Kszczot, though, the race for silver was still an act awaiting its exposition and conclusion. Mark English swept around the field and up into second, his head tilting back as he strained for the line to come closer. The thought occurred to him on that final bend to chance a daring run up the inside rail, but common sense – and a wisdom that belied his relative inexperience – told him to go wide.
“I was playing a percentage game,” he said. “I couldn’t take a chance on the inside. I moved out and thought: ‘just get to the line as quick as you can’. I guess I had enough left to get a medal.”
English forged his way up to the silver-medal position with just 30m left, before swiftly being overtaken by the fast-finishing Artur Kuciapski, who made it a Polish one-two. Lunging across the line, which he crossed in 1:45.03, English took the first middle-distance medal for the Irish at these Championships since Mark Carroll’s bronze over 5,000m in 1998.
“It was unbelievable that last 100 metres,” said English. “I’m happy with bronze. It’s fantastic. It’s not just for me. It’s for everyone who supported me. My whole family are here tonight.” Indeed, two of the first people he encountered as he made his way around the Letzigrund on his lap of honour, draped in an Irish tricolour, were sisters Joanne and Michelle.
He was in no rush, not wanting the moment to end, stopping for anyone who wished to shake his hand, pat him on the back, and ask for an autograph or picture. “You’ve got to soak these things up,” he said. “Who knows what will happen in the future? You could be injured next week.”
There’s that wisdom again – the acknowledgement that despite this achievement, he’s neither presumptuous or arrogant enough to assume that this will be just the first of many championship medals. Saying that, English is an athlete with a confidence in his own ability that matches his enormous talent. Some had criticized the forward tactics he had employed in his semi-final, following the front-running Frenchman Bosse throughout and finding his legs buckling up the home straight.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to allow that race to dent his confidence ahead of the final, to listen to the plethora of armchair advisors who would have only been too willing to tell him what he had done wrong. He didn’t.
“I trusted myself,” said English. “I didn’t listen to anyone else. I knew that Bosse struggled to put rounds back to back. I knew Kszczot would be the strongest in the final.” Indeed, English knew his European rivals well. After all, it was just two months ago that he had beaten many of them – including Kszczot – at the New York Diamond League, where English finished a close second behind David Rudisha in 1:45.03.
After that race, his confidence bolstered to a new level, English went on an eight-race winning spree, which allowed him go to Zurich with the assurance that there was simply no one who scared him in this sphere.
Last year, English recorded a personal best of 1:44.84 in the London Diamond League and went to the World Championships in Moscow with the expectation that he would make the final. He flopped, eliminated in the heat after a run laced with tactical naivety. What a difference a year makes.
“It’s nice not to be known as a time trialist anymore,” he said. “I can go to championships now in the future and know that I can put rounds back to back.”
There will be many more championships for English to exhibit his vast ability in the future, and he knows that with this under his belt, both his confidence and outside expectations will be higher. A major medal in the bag, English will now take in a couple of major end-of-season meets, most likely Rieti and Zurich, where it will come as a major shock of he doesn’t lower the Irish record.
It’s too early to say if he’ll surpass the achievements of the Irish middle distance greats of old, and it would be hugely unfair to burden him with such an expectation. Even still, it’s hard not to. They’ve said it for years, and they’re saying it again now.
There’s just something a bit special about Mark English.
