There’s no disputing it now, Andrew Coscoran smashing his own Irish 1,500 metres record with a stunning victory in Nice on Saturday night.
Clocking a brilliant 3:32.68 at The Meeting Nikaia, Coscoran improved the 3:33.49 he ran at the World Indoor Tour meeting in Birmingham back in February, at the time just about the fastest indoors or out.
They had been two of the longest-standing records in Irish athletics, Ray Flynn’s outdoor mark of 3:33.5 going back 41 years, clocked during the Dream Mile run in Oslo back in July 1982, with the previous indoor mark of 3:35.4 belonging to Marcus O’Sullivan since 1988, also clocked on route to a mile win in New Jersey in 1988.
Coscoran is now out on his own, a first sub 3:33 clocking by an Irishman, the Dublin athlete now certain of his place at the World Championships in August too.
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There was another Irish Under-20 record too for teenage sensation Nick Griggs, who finished ninth in 3:36.09, having run 3:39.94 indoors, the still 18 year-old becoming the first Irish teenage to break 3:40.
Coscoran always said that someday the long-standing records would fall, and now he’s broken them twice in the same season, with the promise of more to come. He nailed the win on the night too, 18-year-old Niels Laros of the Netherlands second in a national senior record of 3:32.89.
