It was disappointment for Sharlene Mawdsley on Tuesday, as she exited the 400m semi-finals at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
The Tipperary sprinter delivered a mega run on Sunday to progress from the heats, and her elation showed how much it meant to have reached the semi-finals.
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However, in a fiercely competitive heat that included the indomitable Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Mawdsley would come home in eighth place with a time of 51.22.
It was a major achievement for Mawdsley to progress this far, though she will no doubt be disappointed not to have placed higher in her semi-final.
She has endeared herself to Irish fans for her impressive performances on the Irish relay teams in recent years, winning European gold in Rome last year before almost dragging Ireland to Olympic bronze with a mega anchor leg in Paris.
Sonia O’Sullivan would present an intriguing theory on the difference between Mawdsley’s relay running and her approach to individual events.
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Sonia O’Sullivan makes interesting Sharlene Mawdsley observation after 400m exit
Speaking on RTÉ’s coverage after Sharlene Mawdsley’s exit from the 400m at the semi-final stage, Ireland legend Sonia O’Sullivan suggested she may struggle to brnig the same energy to individual events as she does to relay events.
O’Sullivan first sympathised with Mawdsley for having been drawn in such a brutally tough semi-final.
“If you’re in a race like that, I think for Sharlene, she’s probably trying to beat the bottom half of the field,” O’Sullivan said.
“I think if I was in her shoes, you definitely would be trying to beat those people around her. There’s a couple [of them] she was faster than. She was ranked sixth going into this semi-final.
“But when you were in a race with probably the greatest female athlete on the planet at the moment, Sydney McLaughlin…the final is going to be off the charts. They’re going to push each other, possibly close to the world record, which is sub-48 seconds. We haven’t seen that in a long, long time.”
It was the steady finish from Mawdsley that most intrigued Sonia.
O’Sullivan pointed out that we have become so accustomed to the phenomenal kick from Mawdsley down the home straight during Ireland’s relay success of recent years, something that was absent on Tuesday:
Sharlene is coming down the straight here now, and this is typically where she really lifts in the relay, but I don’t think she gets that same energy running individually. When you’re running for a team, you really go for it, and I don’t think she finished out as strongly.
She’s not going to battle it out for sixth, seventh, eighth place. Sevilla inside her was really going for every spot – some people do, some people don’t.
It’s an intriguing point, though, after the struggles Sharlene Mawdsley has had on and off the track this year, one could hardly question her desire to reach this stage.
Mawdsley will have a chance to finish her World Championships on a high when she runs on the Ireland women’s 4x400m relay team later this week.
The heats take place on Saturday at 12pm Irish time, with the final to follow at 12:40pm on Sunday.
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