Jeremy Inson looks at how Ireland saw a lot of long-term hard work beginning to pay off during a memorable 2024 track and field season
It is a typically balmy evening at Rome’s Olympic Stadium. The mixed 4x400m relay, the penultimate event of the first day of the 2024 European Championships, is due to start.
With their hurdling superstar Femke Bol on the final leg, the Netherlands are favourites, Ireland’s quartet of Christopher O’Donnell, Rhasidat Adeleke, Thomas Barr and Sharlene Mawdsley are quietly confident of finishing among the medals.
After all, earlier this year they departed the World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas with bronze and a national record of 3:11.53.
Irish Athletes Stuns with Gold in European Championships 4x400m Relay
Just over three minutes later and the Irish athletes line-up have pulled off a huge shock to win gold, their first in the European Championships since Budapest 1998 when Sonia O’Sullivan finished triumphant in the 5000m.
After stellar legs from O’Donnell, Adeleke and Marr, Mawdsley tracks race leader Helena Ponette from Belgium for 300m before blasting past over the final 100m to leave the field – and the fast finishing Bol – in her wake. In doing so the team sets a European and national record of 3.09.92 Irish athletes.
Sharlene Mawdsley (Getty)
Up in the stands among the “wildly celebrating” 70-strong Irish athletes contingent is Paul McNamara, a former national level middle and long distance racer who joined Athletics Ireland in 2006 as a development officer. He is now the performance director, overseeing the senior team in Athletics Ireland’s High Performance team Irish athletes.
“It was huge,” McNamara says of that performance. “We knew we’d had a very positive World Relays and that medal in The Bahamas meant a lot. The 4x400m in Europe is quite strong, particularly the women and also the mixed. You had Femke Bol taking the baton on the last leg and the expectation was that she was going to run down Sharlene Mawdsley Irish athletes.
“The most beautiful thing in our sport is when four relay athletes produce a performance that exceeds the sum of its parts, and that was one of those occasions.”
Ciara Mageean (Getty)
The party rolled on a few days later when Ciara Mageean slipped her way between Britain’s Georgia Bell and Jemma Reekie to win 1500m gold, a sign that Athletics Ireland’s work since 2006 is beginning to bear fruit. “Ciara hadn’t had a standout summer up to then, but she executed superbly, Irish athletes”
McNamara adds. “A second gold medal was outstanding. Ciara is a truly outstanding athlete.” McNamara’s arrival at Athletics Ireland coincided with the Irish athletes government’s decision to fund what had, up until then, been an essentially amateur sport through Sport Ireland Irish athletes.
Sharlene Mawdsley: Ireland’s Rising Sprint Star
Everyone knows Sharlene Mawdsley. I have as of late known about her being contrasted with the Anna Kournikova of the tennis world. Anna would be dazzled. Sharlene is excessively youthful to have known about her. The tall, amiable Irish athletes 400m sprinter has graced each paper, magazine and web-based entertainment page. She gets a larger number of hits than some other competitor. Irish athletes She possesses energy for everybody. Continuously grinning and giving her heart to each 400m presentation. She is enjoyed as a competitor, personally Irish athletes.
This year she has shown marvelous headway in her times, making an European last, timing fast hand-off legs. “If by some stroke of good luck I could make an interpretation of this into my singular occasion” she told me after she fell off the track in Rome, depleted after her fourth 400m race in as numerous days. Irish athletes That night as I took photos of the competitors, I could perceive the amount she had forfeited her singular occasion, for the hand-off group. She made the last and notwithstanding completing eight and noticeably depleted, she returned later to moor the ladies’ transfer to silver. The grin all over as she ran over the end goal said everything Irish athletes.
Only one out of every odd competitor has had a celebrated adolescent vocation from their initial years. For some there is the persistence of consummating procedure, developing personally and rolling out certain improvements that reflect upgrades that add to future achievement. Irish athletes Some begin at various occasions and distances. However others generally had that intrinsic ability that mentors perceive. At ten, twelve or fourteen you never truly know where you will wind up in the game. You can nonconformist, lessen, make an insincere effort or simply hunker down and take a stab at more achievement. Fortunately a youthful Newport AC competitor, Sharlene Mawdsley was in the great hands of her Newport AC guides and bloomed into the sublime competitor we realize that she will generally be today Irish athletes.
High hopes for young athletes in St Moritz