from RTE sports It was a successful weekend for 60m hurdler Gerard O’Donnell and 800m runner Declan Murray as both secured the qualification standards for the European Indoor Championships in Prague. O’Donnell (Carrick on Shannon AC) was the first to do so when he competed in the IFAM indoor meeting in Belgium on Saturday. O’Donnell quickly got into his stride to record a new personal best of 7.87secs to qualify for the 60m hurdle final.
He then went on to produce the run of his career to win the final and set another new personal best of 7.73 seconds – inside the required standard of 7.78 for the European Indoor Championships next month.
The performance marks a big breakthrough for the Leitrim native, until recently O’Donnell hadn’t broken eight seconds for the event.
Murray, meanwhile, was also in superb form on Saturday with a 1.48.32 800m at the Boston University Scarlet and White Invitational in the US.
The Clonliffe Harriers athlete’s time was inside the required standard of 1.48.50 for the European Indoor Championships.
Commenting afterwards, Murray said: “I went through 600 in 1:20 and brought it home. It feels good to get the standard out of the way at my first attempt.
“I’m running a 1,000m at the Millrose Games next week, and I hope to break the Irish record, then it’s off to Ireland for the GloHealth Nationals the week after that.”
https://www.rte.ie/sport/athletics/2015/0208/678762-irish-duo-reach-euro-indoors/
