Mark English (born 18 March 1993) is an Irish middle-distance runner.

Early life

English's home town is Letterkenny in County Donegal. He attended secondary school at St Eunan's College. He only made the switch to athletics during his Transition Year, having previously played

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

for Letterkenny Gaels at under-age level. While a member of

Letterkenny Athletic Club 'Letterkenny Athletic Club'' (LAC) is an Irish athletic club, which has produced several Olympians. Based at Aura Sports Complex in Letterkenny, County Donegal, it has a Tartan 400m running track. History Letterkenny Athletic Club was formed i ...

in his teens, he tested himself against the Gaelic footballer

Caolan Ward Caolan Ward (born 18 August 1992) is an Irish Gaelic footballer who plays for St Eunan's and the Donegal county team. When first called up for Donegal in 2016, he was based in Carlow and travelled from there to train with the team; by 2018 h ...

. English studied medicine at University College Dublin (UCD), where his classmates included Dublin's multiple All-Ireland winning

Jack McCaffrey Jack McCaffrey (born 19 October 1993) is a Gaelic footballer who plays for Clontarf. Early and personal life His father Noel also represented Dublin in football. McCaffrey attended Belvedere College private school and studied medicine at Univ ...

—considered that sport's quickest player. English has issued a challenge to McCaffrey to take him on over

100 metres The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been conteste ...

. After qualifying as a doctor in 2019, he initially intended to step aside from medical practice in order to focus on athletics full-time, but when the 2020 Olympics were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he took the opportunity to complete his 12-month

medical internship A medical intern is a physician in training who has completed medical school and has a medical degree but does not yet have a license to practice medicine unsupervised. Medical education generally ends with a period of practical training similar ...

Career

At the

2014 European Athletics Championships The 2014 European Athletics Championships was held in Zürich, Switzerland, between 12 and 17 August 2014. It was the first time that Switzerland had hosted the European Athletics Championships since 1954. Great Britain headed the medal table, w ...

, English won a bronze medal in the 800 metres event. On 8 March at the

2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships The 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held from 5 to 8 March 2015 in the O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic. Bidding process Prague was chosen as the host of the Championships on the European Athletics council meeting in Sofia, B ...

in Prague, English won a silver medal. In 2014, English finished 2nd at the

Adidas Grand Prix The USA Track & Field, USATF New York Grand Prix is an annual athletics meeting held at Icahn Stadium in New York City, United States. First started in 2005 as the Reebok Grand Prix and then Adidas Grand Prix, it was previously one of the IAAF ...

as part of the

2014 IAAF Diamond League The 2014 IAAF Diamond League was the fifth edition of the annual Diamond League. It consisted of fourteen one-day track and field meetings, starting on May 9, 2014 in Doha, Qatar and ending on September 5, 2014 in Brussels, Belgium. Other events we ...

. English finished 4th at the

2014 IAAF Continental Cup The 2014 IAAF Continental Cup was an international track and field sporting event that was held in Marrakech, Morocco, on 13–14 September 2014. It was the second edition of the IAAF Continental Cup since the name and format was changed from t ...

, representing Team Europe. In 2015, he finished 9th at the

2015 World Championships in Athletics The 2015 IAAF World Championships ( zh, 第十五届世界田径锦标赛), the fifteenth edition of the IAAF World Championships, were held from 22 to 30 August at the National Stadium in Beijing, China. Forty-three nations won medals, 144 of ...

in Beijing, China. He represented Ireland at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

in Rio de Janeiro. Later that year, English ran the 2nd quickest of all-time for 500m at the Great CityGames, finishing 2nd to 2016 Olympic 800m winner David Rudisha. On 3 March 2019, English won a bronze medal in the 800 metres at the

2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships The 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships was held between 1 and 3 March 2019 at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland. This was the second time this event was held in the city after the 1990 edition and the third time it was held in the ...

. Following this, the RTÉ analyst Jerry Kiernan (himself a former athlete) described English as historically the country's "greatest talent" in middle-distance running. Several years earlier, Kiernan had claimed that English was better than Michael Murphy — the All-Ireland winning football team

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

long held to be his county's greatest ever athlete. Kiernan justified this remark with the comment: " urphyis playing against lads from

Monaghan Monaghan ( ; ) is the county town of County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It also provides the name of its Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish and Monaghan (barony), barony. The population of the town as of the 2016 census was 7 ...

. Mark English is running against Kenyans". In August 2019, English won the 800m at the Birmingham

2019 Diamond League The 2019 Diamond League was the tenth season of the annual series of outdoor track and field meetings, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). It featured fourteen meetings, with the final two meetings serving ...

. In August 2022, he won a bronze medal in the

800m The 800 metres, or meters ( US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of an outdoor (400-metre) track and has been an Olympic event since the ...

at the

2022 European Athletics Championships The 2022 European Athletics Championships were the 25th edition of the European Athletics Championships and were held in Munich, Germany, from 15 to 21 August 2022. They were part of the European Championships, a multi-sport tournament which brin ...

in Munich.

Other work

English has been active in encouraging people to read more books.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:English, Mark 1993 births Living people Athletes (track and field) at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Donegal Gaelic footballers European Athletics Championships medalists Irish male middle-distance runners Olympic athletes of Ireland People educated at St Eunan's College People from Letterkenny Sportspeople from County Donegal World Athletics Championships athletes for Ireland