{"id":543588,"date":"2026-07-11T00:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/543588\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T00:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:29:16","slug":"sophie-osullivan-charges-to-1500m-victory-at-the-morton-games-in-santry-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/543588\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie O\u2019Sullivan charges to 1,500m victory at the Morton Games in Santry \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A beautifully timed run by Sophie O\u2019Sullivan<\/a> finally provided a headline Irish victory at the Morton Games in Santry, her finishing charge securing the 1,500 metres win in impressive style.<\/p>\n

On a perfect sunny evening for distance running, O\u2019Sullivan lined up in the penultimate event after falling just short of the win over 800m at the Cork City Sports on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Sitting third at the bell, O\u2019Sullivan started her charge for glory down the backstretch, hitting the front around the final bend and holding on for the win in 4:08.26. Chloe Foerster from the US was second in 4:08.47.<\/p>\n

There was a thrilling finale to the Morton Mile, Sam Prakel from the US breaking the meeting record with his victory in 3:50.97, having previously won the race back in 2018. Cathal Doyle, of host club Clonliffe Harriers, was hot on his heels in third, running 3:52.23, Britain\u2019s Henry McLuckie second in 3:51.38.<\/p>\n

Hopes of an Irish victory in the 5,000m were soon blown apart by Aron Gebremariam, the 19-year-old who fled Eritrea and now running for the Athlete Refugee Team. Breaking clear before halfway, Gebramariam just about held on for the win in 13:15.06, from the chasing Darragh McElhinney (13:15.99) and Nick Griggs (13:16.19), who were left wondering what might have been had they chased earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t close the gap enough, I was gaining on him, but he just had enough gap on us,\u201d said McElhinney.<\/p>\n

Talk of a first sub-10 second clocking on an Irish track proved premature, although Cristian Miller from the US did manage break the stadium record when winning in 10.06 seconds, an Irish all-comers record and eclipsing the 10.12 Morton record set by Yohan Blake from Jamaica in 2015.<\/p>\n

Bori Akinola was up on Miller at the halfway, and held on for third in 10.19, equalling his lifetime best set last month, the wind +1.3 m\/s. Sean Aigboboh, the 20-year-old back from his first year at the University of Houston, took fifth in 10.27.<\/p>\n

Nicola Tuthill got another chance to test herself against Camryn Rogers in the hammer, the Olympic and World Champion from Canada again showing the way with her sixth-round best of 75.97m, just shy of what she threw to also win in Cork.<\/p>\n

Tuthill also threw her best of 71.07 in the sixth round, the 22-year-old from Bandon twice going beyond 70m, edging ever closer to the Irish record of 73.21 which has stood to Eileen O\u2019Keeffe since 2007.<\/p>\n

\"SophieSophie Becker during the Women’s 400m at the Morton Games. Photograph: Nick Elliott\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Sophie Becker chased hard for an Irish victory in the women\u2019s 400m, the two-time Olympian coming up just short behind Kinga Gacka from Poland, who clocked 52.49 for the win \u2013 Becker coming home in 52.65.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to have run a bit faster,\u201d said Becker, \u201cbut lots of positives, my homestretch is improving, and hopefully we can be fighting for a relay medal at the European Championships next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Raftery was best of the Irish in the men\u2019s 400m, coming through for fourth in 45.88, Britain\u2019s Sam Lunt winning in 45.68. The men\u2019s 800m produced a thrilling final, Henry Jonas from Britain snatching victory on the line 1:46.31, Cillian Kirwan also closing fast to nail third in 1:47.27.<\/p>\n

Nina Vukovic from Croatia repeated her win from Cork in the women\u2019s 800m, clocking 2:01.44, Emma Moore from Galway fourth again in 2:02.40, <\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s mixed class Para 100m sprint, Orla Comerford underlined her status as one of the fastest in the world, the Raheny athlete dominating from the starting gun to clock a lifetime best of 11.72 seconds.<\/p>\n

At the Monaco Diamond League meeting, Emmanuel Wanyonyi took down the long-standing world record over 1,000m, clocking 2:11.83 to knock took 0.13 of a second off the previous mark which had stood to fellow Kenyan Noah Ngeny since 1999. Britian\u2019s Jake Wightman was second 2:12.77, moving to fifth on the all-time list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A beautifully timed run by Sophie O\u2019Sullivan finally provided a headline Irish victory at the Morton Games in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,166473,229652,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-543588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sophie-becker","tag-sophie-o-sullivan","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543588","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=543588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}