Sarah Healy splits with her Manchester training group after four years

Irish track and field athlete Sarah Healy has decided to leave her Manchester training base and seek a new direction in her training. The Dubliner is now turning her attention to her next big goals, with defending her European indoor 3000m title in March as her top priority.

Sarah Healy moved from her native Ireland to the UK in November 2022, joining the M11 club under the guidance of coaching and family duo Jenny Meadows and Trevor Painter. British stars Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell are also training in the same group.

“It was definitely the right move for me at the time. I grew immensely and learned invaluable lessons from these athletes. I’m proud to have made that decision at that stage of my career”, said the 25-year-old runner.

The Manchester period brought Healy significant success, including gold in the 3000m at the European Indoor Championships last March. She now sits second in Ireland’s all-time rankings in the 1500m, mile, 3000m and 5000m. It has not yet been announced which team she will join, but she is likely to remain on the island.

After a strong debut in the 5000m last summer, the athlete is considering which events to focus on for the upcoming World Championships in Beijing and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. At the European Championships in Birmingham in August, she finished fourth in the 5000m, just 30 hundredths of a second off bronze, and five days later she finished fifth in the 1500m.

“I didn’t end the season completely satisfied, although there were some good moments. It was quite a difficult and inconsistent year for a number of reasons. The difference between third and fourth place is huge – if I had won a medal at the Europeans, my assessment of the season would have been completely different”, commented Sarah Healy.

She admits that her lack of experience in the longer distance cost her a higher ranking: “I made a tactical mistake on the final straight. If I had entered a medal position, I would have held on to it. I had no experience in the 5000m, so the mistakes were expected, but the belief that I could win an award is a positive sign”.

During her visit to Dublin for an athletics camp, Healy said that her first big challenge for 2027 would be to defend her European title in Valencia. With her personal best of 14:48.88 minutes in the 5000 meters, she is already seriously approaching the national record of Sonia O’Sullivan (14:41.02), set when winning Olympic silver in Sydney in 2000.

“I don’t have a national record for women’s outdoor yet. I would love to achieve one in the future and I believe that if everything goes according to plan, it is achievable. My main goal is not the records themselves, but simply to run fast, but they remain a great motivation”, concluded the Irish athlete Sarah Healy.