Mark English
BY CHRIS MCNULTY
MARK English has confirmed that he’s on the look-out for a new coach.
The Letterkenny man, who ran a season’s best 800m of 1:46.22 – inside the qualification time for the European Championships – in Hengelo, Holland, yesterday, has split from Teresa McDaid.
“It was my decision to move on and try new things,” English told the Donegal News,
“Teresa was very accepting of the decision.”
Under McDaid’s tutelage English won a gold medal at the European Youth Olympics in 2010 and made the final of the 2012 World Junior Championships, finishing fifth in Barcelona.
English, now under the banner of UCD AC, said: “I don’t want to talk about moving on without thanking her for all that she’s done over the years. She brought me to where I am. She brought me a huge way and nursed me along.
“She brought me to a lot of big competitions.”
Last weekend, English won an 800m event in Belgium in a time of 1:46.39.
In Hengelo, he came home fifth and was the second European across the line. Next weekend, he heads for a Diamond League meet in New York. Although the European Championships are looming in August, English is in no hurry to make an appointment.
He said: “I won’t rush into anything.
“I need to make sure that I find a coach who understand the principle I’m coming from on the speed side of it and who works well for me as a person.
“It’ll be my decision. I’ll talk to other people but it’ll be my decision.”
English broke the Irish Indoor record for 800m (1:46.82) in February and is just two hundredths of a second off David Matthews’s outdoor record (1:44.82).
He said: “I have two aims this year – Zurich is one and breaking the Irish record is the other.”
SEE MONDAY’S DONEGAL NEWS FOR FULL INTERVIEW WITH MARK ENGLISH
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