Marcus Lawler is off to the European Athletics Championships in Berlin next month.
With 12 days to go to the start of this year’s championships, we’ve been speaking with Jerry Kiernan to get his thoughts and the former long-distance runner reckons Lawler is a dark horse for a medal this year’s Championships.
Speaking to KCLR on Tuesday, Jerry says that Marcus has the capabilities to do extremely well after his top class performance at last week’s Cork City Sports meet.
“I think he has a chance”, says Kieran in speaking to Michael O’Leary.
“Phil Healy understandably got the headlines in Cork because she ran 22.99 and she broke the Irish record, but Marcus Lawler came mighty close to beating what I consider to be a far stronger Irish record which is Paul Hession’s 20.30 and Marcus has come within a tenth second of that.”
Brilliant Cork City Sports last night! Serious athletics on show. For me, a PB of 20.40 leaving me the second fastest Irish man all time 🇮🇪. Thank you so much to everyone for the kind messages 🏃🏽 pic.twitter.com/IWkXeruq6y
— Marcus Lawler (@marcus_lawler) July 17, 2018
“In other words, he has come within a metre of Paul Hession at his very very best so if he runs 20.40 in the Europeans, he’ll definitely make the Semi-Final and if he could improve a smidgin he could make the final.”
“So we are all talking about Thomas Barr, Marcus Lawler could be the dark horse here.”
Lawler joined Molly Scott in studio on Sunday as the pair discussed their recent athletic achievements and plans for the summer. Listen back to the full conversation below.