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.
Just over three minutes later and the Irish 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.
Sharlene Mawdsley (Getty)
Up in the stands among the “wildly celebrating” 70-strong Irish 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.
“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.
“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,”
McNamara adds. “A second gold medal was outstanding. Ciara is a truly outstanding athlete.” McNamara’s arrival at Athletics Ireland coincided with the Irish government’s decision to fund what had, up until then, been an essentially amateur sport through Sport Ireland.
» This is an abridged version of a longer feature that appeared in the October issue of AW magazine. Subscribe to the magazine here, check out our new podcast here or sign up to our digital archive of back issues from 1945 to the present day here
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