VILLANOVA, Pa.—Rising fifth year distance runner Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) won the first international medal of his career with a runner-up finish against strong competition in the 800 meters at the North American, Central American and Caribbean (NACAC) U23 Championships in Costa Rica earlier this month. Dolan finished with a time of 1:47.54 in a straight final to win the silver medal and make the awards podium in a crowded field in which the top four finishers were separated by only two-tenths of a second. The performance continued a strong summer for Dolan, who previously advanced to the semifinal round of the 800 meters at the USATF Outdoor Championships in June.
 
Since coming to Villanova after being a scholastic national champion the mile, Dolan has continually excelled in the national and international ranks in addition to being a five-time All-American for the Wildcats. At the NACAC U23 Championships on July 23, Dolan ran in a field of runners that included three of this year's top four finishers in the 800 meters from the outdoor NCAA Championships which had been held six weeks prior to the NACAC Championships. Dolan finished behind only Handal Roban from St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Penn State in Costa Rica while beating out the NCAA fourth place finisher Abdullahi Hassan (Canada/Arkansas) and collegiate national champion Will Sumner (United States/Georgia).
 
The NACAC U23 Championships in Athletics is an under-23 athletics competition held between the member associations of the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC). This year's competition was the 12^th edition of the meet, which held its inaugural event in 2000 for athletes aged under-25 and subsequently has reduced the competition to athletes under the age of 23 during the year of competition. The conception of the meet predated the NACAC senior athletics championships which did not debut until 2007.
 
Dolan qualified for this year's outdoor NCAA Championships in the 800 meters for the second straight year. He finished 19^th overall in the national semifinal heats in Austin, Texas on June 7 but has since bounced back with strong results during the summer circuit. He competed at the USATF Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore. on July 6-7 where he advanced to the semifinals for the second straight year. Dolan posted consecutive season best times of 1:46.95 and 1:46.93 in the first round and semifinals, with those marks representing the third and fourth races of his career breaking 1:47 during competition. He finished sixth overall out of 16 runners in the semifinal heats while posting the fastest time among five collegiate runners as well as the fastest time that did not advance to the final. Dolan previously competed at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in June 2021 where he reached the semifinals of the 800 meters.
 
Earlier this year Dolan was named one of two annual winners of the Villanova Senior Student-Athlete of the Year Award for his combination of athletic and academic excellence. He is a five-time All-American and a seven-time BIG EAST champion while wearing the Villanova singlet. Dolan is the only men's athlete in school history to win as many as five BIG EAST titles in the 800 meters and he owns a pair of top-six NCAA finishes in the mile indoors (2021/6^th) and the 800 meters outdoors (2022/5^th). During the 2022-23 collegiate season Dolan was part of a Wildcats 4xMile relay squad which set a school record indoors and won a Penn Relays Championship of America title outdoors. He also anchored the 4x800 meter relay squad which won a BIG EAST gold medal while setting a meet record and a Villanova Stadium record with a winning time of 7:17.96.
 
Dolan enters the 2023-24 collegiate campaign ranked fourth in school history in the 800 meters, sixth in the 1500 meters and seventh in the mile based on times recorded during the collegiate competition calendar. He is one of 45 members of the Villanova sub-four-minute mile club and the 19^th runner to achieve that feat during Marcus O'Sullivan's head coaching tenure.