Years in the Making: Andrew Coscoran’s Journey to European Bronze

Overnight success can be a long time coming. Andrew Coscoran’s brilliant sprint finish to nick bronze in the 1500m final at the recent European Athletics Championships suddenly catapulted him into the spotlight. It was the 30-year-old’s third consecutive European final and he was an Olympic semi-finalist on his five-ringed debut in 2021, but this was his first major medal.

A year and a half ago he broke Eamonn Coghlan’s 42-year-old Irish indoor record at the Wannamaker Mile in New York. His 3:49.26 time knocked 0.52 seconds off the Chairman of the Board’s 1983 time, which was a world record that lasted for 14 years. It also made the Balbriggan man the fastest Irish miler of all time because it bettered Ray Flynn’s 1982 outdoor mark of 3:49.77 which Coscoran officially lowered to 3:49.68 this Summer.

His impressive form continued in 2025. He was sixth in the European Indoor final and made 12^th in the World (outdoor) final in Tokyo where he also raced the 5km after becoming the Irish 5000m champion.

Birmingham certainly wasn’t his first rodeo. In an event whose blistering final lap often leaves athletes eating or hitting the dust, he just finally stayed on. His talent was evident ever since he was a European junior (U20) finalist in 2015 but that was 11 years ago so what finally got him on a podium?

The clue was in his post-race comment:

“I knew my last 100 would be good, I just didn’t know if I would be in the right position to use it.”

The 1500m is a precarious balance of tactics and timing. Coscoran ran the final 100m in 12.8 seconds which is serious wheels at the end of almost four laps.

“I’ve always been quite good over the last 100m but in the last couple of years focussed more on the aerobic strength side of things, trying to maximise turn of pace into maximum sprint speed,”

he explains.

“One of the areas that was limiting my speed was my stride length and that was because I wasn’t putting enough power down into the ground. 

“My power-to-weight ratio was a little bit worse because I was a little heavier than some of the other guys, so I worked on putting more power down into the ground and lengthening my stride.

“The change of pace stuff is about muscle recruitment. Doing plyometrics, box jumps and reactive jumps really makes a difference,”

he adds.

Irish sprint and biomechanical experts like Gerald O’Donnell, Martina McCarthy and Colin Griffin helped him, as did Chris Bramah in the UK.

It’s been four or five years since he consulted Griffin, the Olympic race walker who’s now a running performance expert at Santry Sports Clinic. Coscoran says

“Colin laid the foundation in me understanding the importance of stiffening your tendons.

“If you stiffen up your calves or your Achilles tendons you get a lot of free energy. You hit the ground and bounce up again automatically; you don’t have to activate your muscles to produce the energy.”

The amalgamation of all his big-race experience also helped him “not make the same mistake twice!

“In my first European final in Munich (2022, 9^th) I was quite new to senior running, completely relaxed. I made the most of it but World Championships (where he was a semi-finalist) were in Oregon only six weeks earlier so, logistically, that was a tough season. 

“At that stage I was new to travelling around the world to race, how to deal with jet lag, how to settle and how not get too hung up on a result if one race went badly.

“In Rome (2024, 13th) it was a pure tactical error. Jakob Ingebrigtsen usually sat at the back and moved up later and I was tracking him but he moved up early, ran a 3:32 and I couldn’t match that.

“He has a giant aerobic base. I learned that I can’t make a move that early in a race, that I need to sit in a little longer and kick later, when everyone else has kind of used up their energy.”

Coscoran has worked with a variety of coaches since starting out with Brendan Meade in Star of the Sea AC whom he still rings for advice, but working now with Paul Robinson, who finished fourth in the European 1500m final in 2014, was almost accidental.

“When I came back to Ireland, I needed some help with training and met Paul for a coffee. He’s a secondary school teacher but when I asked him to come on the bike, he was straight in and has really stepped up for me since. I needed someone who knows the sport and has a logical mind.”

Waiting so long for his big breakthrough has demanded huge mental resilience and reading ‘The Chimp Paradox’ (he’s met the author Steve Peters’ twice since) proved a psychological turning point.

“What’s really changed things for me was to take away any importance in the end-goal, to concentrate solely on enjoying the process. I just try to tick off the small goals every day, like having a good session or nailing my nutrition or getting a really good night’s sleep.

“When a race doesn’t go your way, you might have done three good things and two bad ones. So I work on my weaknesses and do five good things next time. You just focus on getting slightly better every single time and taking the positives from every experience.”

Next, he’s headlining a strong Irish team at the second edition of the World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen (September 19-20) where he’ll race the mile.

Coscoran’s Whatsapp image is an iconic photo sure to make all Irish athletics’ fans smile, capturing him standing between Eamonn Coghlan and Ray Flynn at last year’s Wannamaker Mile.

“It’s a great photo,”

he agrees.

“That was a big moment for me because Ireland has such a great heritage in middle distance. To be able to go faster than those guys meant I was in a really good place.

“It was an honour to have them both there at the track as well and I think they were happy that the torch was being passed on to the next generation.”