Anything they can run, Síofra Cléirigh Büttner clearly felt she could run faster, breaking the Irish indoor 800 metres just four days after Nadia Power had broken it for the second time this season, writing it back under her own name in the process.
Competing on Sunday night at the American Track League meeting at Fayetteville, Arkansas, Butter took almost two seconds off her previous best, clocking 2:00:58, and with that taking a sizeable chunk off Power’s previous record of 2:00.98, set in Poland last Wednesday night.
Victory on the night in Fayetteville went to the American Heather Maclean in 2:00.53, Büttner just .05 of a second behind, and it also just comes two weeks after Büttner improved her 1,500m best to 4:09.67, the second fastest indoors by an Irish woman on the all-time list.
Power first broke the record at the end of January, running 2:02:44, with that breaking Büttner’s previous record of 2:02.46, which had stood to the 25-year-old since 2018, set during her time at Villanova in the US.
Having spent some of the winter training at altitude in Colorado, and now coached by former American distance runner Mark Coogan, Büttner’s time completes a remarkable week for Irish women’s 800m running, as in the last five days five different Irish athletes have posted the five fastest runs in the history of the indoor event in Ireland.
Four of those athletes, Büttner, Power, Georgie Hartigan and Louise Shanahan, are inside the top 20 of the world rankings which is more than any other country. Indeed the six fastest indoor 800m times in history by Irish women have all been set in the past 23 days, the Athletics Ireland Elite Mirco Meet on Sunday seeing Hartigan, who last year switched allegiance from Great Britain and is now running with Dundrum South Dublin AC, run the then second fastest on the Irish all-time list when winning in 2.01.48, with Shanahan (2.01.67) and Iseult O’Donnell (2.02.29) also setting significant personal bests.
With the Irish team to travel to Poland on March 5th-7th for the European Indoor Athletics Championships due to be named later today, the selectors now have to factor the Dundrum South Dublin athlete into their plans. She also moves to fourth in the European rankings as a result of her run in Arkansas with the championships just 10 days away.
