Mark is the Master in South Korea

DROGHEDA & District AC’s Mark O’Shea will return home from South Korea this Tuesday night as a double world champion after a truly outstanding performance at the World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships in Daegu last week.

A native of Skerries but a long-time resident of Bettystown, O’Shea’s first medal race was the M45 800m last Wednesday morning and this proved to be a real test of patience and concentration.

O’Shea is gifted with a tremendously fluid running style, but the final proved to be a very slow, tactical affair and he needed to use every bit of his experience to come through in first place.

Coming round the final bend on this tight track, O’Shea unleashed his trademark finishing kick to win gold, just ahead of Petereter Brady (United States) and Rubio Balaguegue from Spain who got the bronze medal. A sub two-minute man, O’Shea’s winning timeme was 2:07.14, not fast by any means, but ut then championship racing is all about winning and getting the medal.

While many runners might have let that success go to their head, O’Shea (pictured right in centre) is a very humble man and quiet by nature and he immediately refocused his mind on Saturday’s 1500m final.

He knew that he was in with a good d chance of picking up a second gold medal dal if he could avoid getting into trouble and being boxed in coming up to the last lap. ap.

Unlike the 800, this turned out to bee a fast fast, true run race, and with less than 50 met metres to go O’Shea was out in lane three and giving his coach a heart attack.

B But despite having to run further on the ban banked surface, the Drogheda & District AC star somehow found an extra ounce of speedsp to dip as he crossed the line and claimedc victory in a time of 4:07.44 -a newn Irish record in the M45 age group byb some three seconds.

This time O’Shea’s winning margin wasw a mere tenth of a second as he held off Frederic Gilbert of France and bronze medallistme Peter Brady of the USA.

O’Shea’sO Drogheda & District clubmate Pat O’Grady won a gold medal at the same championshipscha last Sunday week as part of tthe Irish cross-country team.