Mark English improves season's best for seventh at Diamond League in China

Mark English hit a new season's best to finish seventh over 800m at a Diamond League meeting in China on Saturday.

The Finn Valley AC man crossed the line in 1:46.47 for seventh among some of the world's leading 800m protagonists.

At the Yangtze Delta Athletics Diamond Gala in the Suzhou Olympic Sports Centre, English improved on the 1:47.14 set the previous week in Xiamen.

Algeria's Slimane Moula held off a strong field to win in 1:44.55.

Moula, just off a 17-hour jaunt to China, had to be strong to the line with Wyclife Kinyamal, the double Commonwealth Games gold medal winner from Kenya and the USA's Olympic bronze medallist Clayton Murphy breathing on his neck.

Kinyamal was second in 1:44.88 with Murphy going over the line in 1:45.18 for third.

English made good hay over the last 200m to make up some positions from the rear.

The Letterkenny man, who is a four-time European medallist, competed at the 2016 and 2021 versions of the Olympic Games and the 31-year-old doctor is aiming to make it to this year's Olympics in Paris.

English elected to side-step the National Senior Indoor Championships in February and the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in early March to turn his focus on the outdoor term, with the Olympic Games on the menu.

In the United States, Finn Valley AC's Cara Laverty hit a new 1500m personal best at the Penn State Relays.

At Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Laverty was competing for Providence College, where she is a scholarship student.

In the College Women's 1500m, Laverty clocked a lifetime best of 4:16.72 over the distance.

The Donegal 1500m record of 4:14.19, set in 1990, is held by Siobhan Gallagher from Ballyshannon, who was also a student at Providence College.