Mageean begins Ireland's Europeans challenge

Ciara Mageean will be the first Irish athlete in action when the European Championships get under way in Rome on Friday morning.

The Portaferry woman, 32, should have little difficulty in negotiating qualification for Sunday evening's 1500m final with the top six in the two heats progressing to the decider.

Mageean has made it abundantly clear that her summer goal is to arrive at the Olympic Games in peak condition as she chases a first global medal.

But unlike rivals such as Laura Muir, she has opted to compete in the Eternal City and on the face of it, goes into the 1500m as the favourite to win gold after taking silver behind the Scot two years ago.

Great Britain duo Jemma Reekie and Katie Snowden, on paper, look Mageean's main rivals for the title with her fellow Irish woman Sarah Healy also a likely medal contender after being narrowly pipped by the county Down athlete for victory over 1500m in Ostrava last week.

Mageean's victory in the Czech Republic came a couple of days after she had improved her own national 800m record to 1:58.51 when finishing second precocious behind British talent Phoebe Gill at a British Milers Club meeting in Manchester.

English competes in 800m heats

First things first, Mageean goes in her opening heat at 10:45 BST on Friday alongside 800m specialist Reekie, who has an 1500m personal best of 3:58.65 from last year, and Poland's Sofia Ennaoui the only other competitor in the field to have broken four minutes for the metric mile distance.

Healy, who set her personal best of 3:59.68 at last year's World Championships, will be up against Snowden (PB 3:56.72) and another Britain Georgia Bell in heat two.

The Dubliner, who is coached in England by Jenny Meadows and Trevor Painter, will be looking avoid any mishaps after her unfortunate fall three months ago at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow which cost her a place in the final.

Letterkenny athlete Mark English also competes on the opening morning in Rome as he begins his bid to clinch a fifth European 800m medal while Michelle Finn goes in the women's 3,000m steeplechase heats.

English, who is now 31, clinched European bronze in Munich two years ago - eight years after finishing third in the final in Zurich.

The Donegal man's career has also included securing European Indoor silver and bronze medals and his 1:44.95 run in Oslo last week suggests he can again be in contention in Rome.

However, he will have to run well on Friday morning to progress with four of his heat rivals having also run under 1:45 - including Great Britain's Elliott Giles whose lifetime best is 1:43.63 and Spain's Adrian Ben, who has a 1:43.92 time to his name.

Ireland will have hopes of landing a first medal in Friday's first evening session when the mixed 4x400m relay team line up in the straight final.

The Irish quartet - spearheaded by Olympic women's 400m medal hopeful Rhasidat Adeleke - won bronze at the World Relays in the Bahamas last month, when Sharlene Mawdsley also ran a sensational last leg when almost holding off Dutch star Femke Bol.

Thomas Barr and Cillin Greene ran the men's legs in the Bahamas when the USA took gold ahead of the Netherlands and similar performances could again see the Irish on the rostrum - if indeed the decision is taken to target the event given Adeleke, Mawdsley and Barr are also competing in their specialist individual events in Rome.

Israel Olatunde will hope the European Championship stage can again inspire him in the opening 100m heats as it did two years ago when he went on to finish a brilliant sixth in the final in an Irish record of 10.17 seconds.

The Dubliner hasn't been able to reproduce that kind of form over the last 21 months with his season's best a modest 10.37.

Eric Favours competes in shot putt qualification with Jodie McCann in action in the women's 5,000m final.

Tyrone talent Nick Griggs must wait until Monday morning to make his European Championships bow when he competes in the 1500m heats alongside Irish team-mate Andrew Coscoran.