Ciara Mageean (City of Lisburn AC) has won a superb silver medal for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Mageean ran an excellent 1500m season’s best of 4.04.14 to finish behind Scotland’s Laura Muir, who won her second medal of the Games having won bronze over 800m the night before.
Medal Alert
What a race! It's Silver for Ciara Mageean in the Women's 1500m in 4:04.14 in a season's best time!#Birmingham2022 @GoTeamNI @SportNINet pic.twitter.com/FYor2R9mCT
— Athletics NI (@AthleticsNI) August 7, 2022
Mageean, who is now coached by Helen Clitheroe, executed her race perfectly from a tactical perspective to ensure that she would follow in the footsteps of teammate and fellow Irish international athlete Kate O’Connor (Dundalk St. Gerald’s AC) in winning a medal at the Games.
The Down native positioned herself perfectly throughout and when Muir kicked for home with just less than 500m to go Mageean was the only athlete capable of going with her.
A recent 800m clocking of 1.59.03 proves that Mageean has plenty of speed in her legs and she demonstrated that with a strong final lap in Birmingham.
Ciara Mageean moves onto European Championships
The two-time Olympian will now turn her attention to the European Championships in Munich which get underway in just over a week’s time. Mageean is listed to compete in both the 800m and 1500m. however it is unclear as to what event she will run or whether she will double up. It is likely that she will set her sights on winning another European medal over 1500m, having previously won a bronze back in 2016 in Amsterdam and more recently a European indoor bronze in Glasgow in 2019.
Earlier in the week at the Commonwealth Games, the aforementioned Kate O’Connor won Northern Ireland’s second ever athletics medal at these championships by taking silver in the Heptathlon.
The Irish record holder, who is still just 21, produced the second-best performance of her career accumulating 6,233 points just 64 points off her lifetime best which was set in 2021.
O’Connor will also travel to Munich for the European Championships.
Elsewhere at the Games, Eilish Flanagan (Finn Valley AC) finished sixth in the 3000m Steeplechase, Roisin Flanagan (Finn Valley AC) came eleventh in the 5000m running a PB of 15:26.76. Anna McCauley (City of Lisburn AC) was sixth in the Heptathlon, while Ellie McCartney (City of Lisburn AC) was seventh in the Pole Vault with a new PB of 4.25m.
Both Flanagan sisters will also represent Ireland at the European Championships.
Kevin Seaward (St. Malachy’s AC) and Stephen Scullion (Clonliffe Harriers AC) finished ninth and tenth respectively in the Marathon. Mark Millar was sixth in the T54 Marathon, while Eve Walsh-Dann finished fifth in her heat of the T38 100m equalling her PB.
Two-time British champion Megan Marrs (City of Lisburn AC) finished 12th overall in the 100m Hurdles.
