Marcus Lawler comfortable in 200m skin as Munich looms

Marcus Lawlor casts his mind back to 2018 when pressed on his season's form heading into the European Championships.

The Carlow native is part of the 4x400m relay team, but the 200m is his bread and butter. A season’s best of 20.75 was achieved two months ago, but that wouldn’t have the 27-year-old in with the big hitters.

The Tokyo Olympian acknowledges the form isn’t there to match the lead-in to the 2018 Europeans in Berlin, but that meet was a reminder of the fickle nature of competitive sport.

"Back then I was going in with a big PB and probably thought I could get close to a final," he told RTÉ Sport.

"I got a very rude awakening, gone in the first round. This time I’m going in a little bit down the list of season’s best, but I’m quietly confident I can deliver a good performance.

"Hopefully a good performance in round one and then take it race by race.

"When you look at the start list, 20.40 has you ranked pretty highly, but 20.75 puts you down at the bottom of the list. But it’s such small margins.

"In 2019 I was running 20.55, but then the pandemic arrived and I just felt it might have knocked that momentum away from me.

In order to get down to 20.4 and 20.5, I’ve got to be knocking out that 20.7 consistently. I’ve ran it once this year and I also ran a couple of 20.9s that I thought were worth a little bit more.

"If I can knock out that 20.7 consistently hopefully the drop to that 20.4/20.5 range will come again."

Munich represents a third European Championships for Lawlor, and some observers have wondered whether it is 200m or 400m that allows the strength and conditioning graduate play his strongest hand.

During the early indoor season he dabbled in 400m - "one thing led to another and I ended up doing another race, and