{"id":569627,"date":"2026-07-27T00:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/569627\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T00:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:03:10","slug":"sophie-osullivan-breaks-her-mother-sonias-31-year-old-record-in-runaway-1500m-win-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/569627\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie O\u2019Sullivan breaks her mother Sonia\u2019s 31-year-old record in runaway 1,500m win \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

All athletes will tell you that winning a national title is always such a great honour, but sometimes there are bigger things at stake. Starting with Rhasidat Adeleke<\/a> it was all about turning her season around, before Sophie O\u2019Sullivan<\/a> and Cian McPhillips<\/a> wrapped up the National Track and Field Championships in Santry on Sunday evening with a bonus prize of their own.<\/p>\n

With her impressive runaway victory over 1,500 metres, O\u2019Sullivan collected her second national title in 4:05.62 \u2013 hitting the front with around 650m to go, and with that finally taking down the championship record 4:07.09 which had belonged to her mother Sonia since 1995. That\u2019s now two successive championship record holders for Ballymore Cobh AC.<\/p>\n

Laura Nicholson of Bandon AC did chase hard to win silver in 4:08.27, but with that fell short one second short of the B-standard for next month\u2019s European Championships in Birmingham. O\u2019Sullivan has already qualified, along with Sarah Healy, who missed the championships this weekend with a minor injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll get back to a bit of training for the next two weeks and hopefully do something good,\u201d said O\u2019Sullivan, who has bounced back to her best in recent weeks having won this event at the Morton Games last month.<\/p>\n

In winning his first national outdoor 800 metres title, McPhillips also gave himself the bonus of a confidence boast ahead of Birmingham, where events begin on Monday week. The UCD AC athlete cruised to win in 1:47.76, breezing past early leader Cillian Kirwan from Raheny, who won silver in 1:49.39. Although five-time European medal winner, Mark English, was absent with an Achilles tendon strain, Irish medal hopes for this event for Birmingham are strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very frustrating start to the year, but I\u2019m getting there, it was a good run,\u201d said McPhillips, \u201cand hopefully this trajectory can continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adeleke had already set Morton Stadium alight in the 200m on Saturday afternoon, even if in the split second it took her to cross the line and then catch a glimpse of the clock, it felt like her entire season was hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n

\"RhasidatRhasidat Adeleke celebrates after winning the women’s 200m final on Saturday. Photograph: Mark Kavanagh\/Sportsfile <\/p>\n

When her time of 22.80 seconds flashed up on the clock \u2013 inside the required 22.85 to book her ticket to Birmingham \u2013 Adeleke promptly raised her arms in delight, then slowed up with a smile across her face that hadn\u2019t been seen in quite a while.<\/p>\n

Better still, Adeleke ran into a stiff -1.1m\/s headwind, suggesting there are faster times to come after \u2013 by her own admission \u2013 weeks of adversity and increasing pressure, which at times became all-consuming. Only this time Adeleke let all that pressure go, reminding herself of why, and for who, she first started running for back in her earliest days at Tallaght AC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to work with the cards I\u2019ve been dealt with this year,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s new for me, this type of adversity. I think throughout my career, I\u2019ve been blessed to have a pretty seamless route to success.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerformances is the forefront, it\u2019s always been my main priority. And as I improved and I became world-class, I think the pressure builds, not just for myself, but everybody else. <\/p>\n

\u201cI almost let it consume me a little bit, and I think just having this difficulty and adversity has kind of brought me back to why I do it in the first place. Because you have to analyse everything, when things like that happen. And it just came back to figuring out who I am, why I do this, why I started it, and who I do it for.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also detailed the nature of her setbacks in recent months, including two hamstring injuries which kept her out of training for four weeks at a time at her training base in Austin, Texas: \u201cNow I\u2019m just taking everything a day at a time, trying to relax and enjoy my experience. I want to put having fun at the forefront and pinnacle of why I do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were utterly contrasting fortunes for Sharlene Mawdsley, who pulled up with what looked like a serious hamstring injury coming into the homestretch. Mawdsley was visibly upset when leaving the track, and will undergo a scan on Monday to assess the extent of her injury, an ill-timed blow having run four consecutive personal bests over the 400m this season, and still ranked fifth fastest in Europe.<\/p>\n

\"BenjiBenji Richardson on the way to winning the men’s 100m to complete the sprint double. Photograph: Tyler Miller\/Sportsfile <\/p>\n

Sunday evening also concluded with strong performance by Andrew Coscoran in the men\u2019s 1,500m, the Star of the Sea AC runner denying Cathal Doyle a fifth successive title when boldly kicking for home around the final bend, winning in 3:44.07, to Doyle\u2019s 3:44.70. Nick Griggs won bronze in 3:45.02.<\/p>\n

Coscoran is already qualified for Birmingham and is certainly rounding into form, as is Darragh McElhinney, who won the 5,000m in 13:31.71 after his bid for glory with two laps to run. Jack O\u2019Leary was second in 13:35.54.<\/p>\n

Benji Richardson also completed a 100m\/200m double in what were his first races in Ireland, the county of his birth, after completing his transfer from South Africa earlier this year. Although not eligible to represent Ireland until next year, Richardson\u2019s 100m victory on Sunday also produced a championship record of 10.13 seconds, defending champion Bori Akinola second in 10.21, with Se\u00e1n Aigboboh running a best of 10.26 to take bronze.<\/p>\n

In the field, there was a fifth national title for Nicola Tuthill in the hammer, the Bandon woman throwing a best of 70.16m, with Ruby Millet taking the women\u2019s long jump title with a best of 6.47m, Elizabeth Ndudi settling for bronze with a best of 6.42m<\/p>\n

Jack Raftery came through on the line to win his third successive men\u2019s 400m, after Rachel McCann also ran down Sophie Becker in the race for the women\u2019s title, winning in 52.93, with Becker clocking 53.23.<\/p>\n

US-based Madison Mooney also produced a late run to snatch the 800m title from Emma Moore, but there was no stopping Sarah Lavin\u2019s quest to win her 11th title in the 100m hurdles, running a season best of 13.34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All athletes will tell you that winning a national title is always such a great honour, but sometimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,14329,20871,112],"class_list":["post-569627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rhasidat-adeleke","tag-sharlene-mawdsley","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569627","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=569627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}