Eilish Flanagan: Tyrone woman sets new NI 3,000m steeplechase record to move into Tokyo contention

Eilish Flanagan and her twin sister Roisin are both on athletics scholarships at Adams State University in Colorado

Tyrone athlete Eilish Flanagan has moved into contention for Olympic Games selection after setting a new Northern Ireland 3,000m steeplechase record.

Flanagan, 24, produced a new Northern Ireland mark of 9:40.68 which cut 1.93 seconds off the previous record set by Rio Olympian Kerry O’Flaherty in 2015.

Colorado-based student Flanagan was competing in Eugene, Oregon as she achieved a runaway victory.

Flanagan’s run will move her to at least the fringes of a Tokyo spot.

With the women’s steeplechase entry in Tokyo stipulated to be a maximum 45 athletes, the Carrickmore woman was in 69th place in the Olympic rankings prior to her run on Friday night.

Flanagan’s time on Friday was over 10 seconds outside the 3,000m qualifying standard of 9:30:00 but only 19 eligible athletes have achieved that to date which means that several competitors will come from the world ranking list.

The Irish international athlete looks set to move up to very close to a mid-40s position and perhaps even higher when World Athletics’ Road to Tokyo women’s steeplechase rankings are updated in the coming days.

Italy’s Isabel Mattuzzi currently occupies 45th place having run times of 10:10.63 and 9:43.90 in 2019 and also having a faster 9:34.02 to her name from 2018.

Another example of an athlete currently clinging on to a qualifying spot is Japan’s Reimi Yoshimura who lies 41st having posted a mark of 9:51.47 this year in addition to times of 9:49.30 and 9:49.45 in 2019 and 2020 – all significant slower than Flanagan’s run on Friday.

Flanagan occupies 69th spot by dint of her 9:52.70 performance set last month and times of 9:51.72 and 10:19.19 set in 2019, the year she won a European Under-23 silver medal.

O’Flaherty currently occupies 66th in the Olympic rankings and has been training and competing in New Mexico in the USA over the last number of weeks in the hope of achieving qualification for a second successive Games.

Flanagan and her twin sister Roisin are both on athletics scholarships at Adams State University in Colorado, with Roisin having set a new Northern Ireland 5,000m record last December when taking taking 12 seconds off Emma Mitchell’s previous mark.

The Flanagan twins were both part of the Irish team which clinched a women’s under-23 team silver medal at the 2019 European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon

Eilish’s time on Friday night broke the existing NCAA Division Two 3,000m steeplechase record by seven seconds.