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<\/p>\nLatest\u00a0|\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Cian McPhillips celebrates winning his men’s 800m heat during day four of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Sam Barnes\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n
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Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi crosses the finish line to win his 800m heat ahead of Italy’s Francesco Pernici and Ireland’s Mark English. Photo: Reuters\/Sarah Meyssonnier<\/p>\n
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Mark English and Cian McPhillips produced superb performances to advance to the 800m semi-finals at the World Championships in Tokyo on Tuesday evening, with McPhillips having the run of his life to win his heat in 1:44.91 and English taking third in his in 1:45.13.<\/p>\n
English, the five-time European medallist, had high hopes of reaching his first global final and the Donegal man utilised his vast experience to navigate a tricky heat, won by Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi in 1:45.05, with Italy\u2019s Francesco Pernici second in 1:45.11.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit of a funny heat because there was a lot of surging at about 300m to 500m which you don\u2019t usually see in 800m racing, so it was tough with that aspect,\u201d said English.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully I made a move from 500m to 600m and got into position and held on for third. I\u2019m looking forward to Thursday now, it\u2019ll be a good competition but I\u2019m ready for anyone in that stifling heat out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
McPhillips, meanwhile, pulled off a massive upset to win his heat against some of the event\u2019s heavy hitters, the Longford native powering to victory with a huge kick ahead of USA\u2019s Bryce Hoppel (1:45.09) and Tyrice Taylor (1:45.13).<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m delighted with that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of hard work went into that; I\u2019ve a great team behind me who made all the right decisions to get me here. Thankfully I could execute the plan and get the job done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe semi-final will be the best quality race I\u2019ve ever been in by a million miles, top two to qualify is pretty ruthless in the 800m. It\u2019ll be a quick race, I\u2019ll try do what I did there, throw myself in the mix and see what happens,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Sharlene Mawdsley is also in action in the 400m semi-finals at 1.23pm, while Sarah Healy will race the 1500m final at 2.05pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Latest\u00a0|\u00a0 Ireland’s Cian McPhillips celebrates winning his men’s 800m heat during day four of the World Athletics Championships…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-24884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}