Ballineen Bullet Phil Healy races to 200m glory at national senior indoor championships

PHIL Healy equalled her season’s best as she stormed back to the top of the podium at the National Senior Indoor Championships on Saturday.

The Ballineen Bullet won her SIXTEENTH national senior title as she raced to gold in the women’s 200m on day one of the championships at the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena in Dublin.

This was Healy’s third national senior indoor 200m title, to add to her 2016 and 2020 successes, and it was more evidence she is back on track after a challenging 2023 season.

Having won her heat in 23.59, almost two seconds quicker than the closest athlete, Healy (29) showed everyone that she means business in this Olympic year by clocking 23.37 to take top prize in the final – it equalled the Bandon AC star’s previous season best she had ran two weeks earlier in Belgium.

‘I felt like I didn’t get out as well in the final as the earlier heat, but it was faster on the clock so that’s a good sign in terms of how strong I felt,’ said Healy, who had almost 0.9 of a second to spare over Katie Bergin in second (24.26), while Alana Ryan (24.77) won bronze. Another Bandon AC athlete, Lauren McCourt, finished sixth in the final, in 25.21, having run 24.66 to win her heat earlier in the day.

‘It’s been a very clean winter for me and things are back in a good place,’ Healy added. 

‘I’ve a 400m next week, where I’ll be guesting at the Connacht championships and then hopefully the following week it’ll be Worlds with the 4x400m relay so a big few weeks ahead.’

Healy has now won 16 national senior championships gold medals, split evenly between indoor (8) and outdoor (8).