What times and TV channel are Mark English and Cian McPhillips in action in Tokyo today?

For the first time ever Ireland will have two athletes in the men's 800m semi-finals of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo today.

Mark English was backed to make it there after a stellar season that began with bronze in the European Indoor Championships and continued with the Donegal veteran breaking the national 800m record three times, most recently last month.

The 32-year-old doctor qualified from his heat but, in easing up before the finish line, allowed the young Italian Francesco Pernici to beat him to second place behind reigning Olympic title holder Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya.

English immediately knew that would make his task more difficult, with only two to qualify from each of the three semi-finals and two fastest losers, but only two of his rivals - Marco Arop of Canada and Djamel Sedjati - have faster PBs.

It's still a stacked field, however, with English's semi-final scheduled for 1.45pm Irish time - and with his compatriot Cian McPhillips following him in the next race.

The 23-year-old was not expected to progress from his heat on his Worlds debut, yet he won it in impressive style. The semi-final seems him line up against seven opponents who have all run faster than his 1:44.19 personal best.

"It's the best quality race I've been in by a million miles," McPhillips acknowledged. "Top two is pretty ruthless in the 800 to qualify, it will be a quick race and I'll just do what I did (in the semi-final), I'll throw myself in the mix and see what happens."

He has described his heat victory as a huge confidence boost and he will ride that wave into the race, which features US world champ Donavan Brazier and a number of Olympic, World and European finalists and gets underway at 1.53pm Irish time.

"I'm delighted with that, a lot of hard work went into it and thankfully I could execute it and get the job done," he said, reflecting on Tuesday's outstanding effort.

"It's pretty scary when you see your heat draw and you're in with 1.42, 1.43 guys, miles ahead of my season's best, thankfully I think I just came into shape at the right time. I have a great coaching set-up behind me and I think we just made the right calls at the right times to make sure I was peaking for this."

RTÉ's coverage of today's World Championship action starts on RTÉ 2 and the RTÉ Player at 10.45am and continues through to 2.55pm.