World class 1,500m running may not be Mark Carroll’s speciality but he produced a solid effort against a quality field at last night’s Stockholm Grand Prix. Once again the enduring Irish record was a little outside his reach but the time of three minutes 35.09 seconds was just a stride outside his best. That left him in ninth place behind Spain’s Jose Redolat, who produced a surprise win in 3:31.96 just ahead of the in-form Kenyan Bernard Lagat (3:31.96). Carroll had hoped to come close to Ray Flynn’s 19-year-old mark of 3:33.5 but this sort of time will be rewarding nonetheless, just 0.18 short of the 3:34.91 he ran last year. On a cool night for running, it was also inside the A-standard for next month’s World Championships in Edmonton although Carroll is targeting his favoured 5,000m. He now concludes his international preparations for Edmonton with a 3,000 metres in Monaco on Friday night – the fourth stop on the Golden League circuit – before coming straight home for the 5,000 metres at the National Championships on Sunday. ( Results).