The quartet of Jack Raftery, Sophie Becker, Conor Kelly and Sharlene Mawdsley might have had a difficult heat draw, but even still, their sixth-place finish in 3:13.59 was a distinctly sub-par performance, 3.6 seconds down on the national record which was run to win gold in Rome last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess you can\u2019t have an off day at a World Championships and that\u2019s clearly what we had,\u201d said Mawdsley. \u201cIt\u2019s our own fault. We made mistakes in the race but it\u2019s how it goes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe event has pushed on so much. We\u2019ve learned so much from it. I know it\u2019s not the time to learn something but for next year, going into Europeans, we are the defending champions so we want to put our best foot forward then. We\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
They had hoped to be back on track this evening for the mixed relay final at the Japan National Stadium, but for Kelly and Raftery it brought their championships to a swift close, while Becker and Mawdsley will make a quick turnaround for the heats of the women\u2019s 400m tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was not a good day, but that\u2019s how it goes,\u201d said Kelly. \u201cI\u2019m happy it wasn\u2019t a good day because next time I\u2019ll come back and not much worse can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
They had started well, with Raftery running a strong opening leg and handing over to his training partner Becker with the Irish in contention for one of the three automatic qualifying spots.<\/p>\n
But the Wexford Olympian, who has so often risen to the occasion on stages like this, had a day to forget, fading through the field and looking a shadow of her former self as she lost contact with the leading teams \u2013 an injury-hit year perhaps catching up to her.<\/p>\n
Kelly, the European U-20 400m champion, looked fully at home on his World Championship debut, the 18-year-old running a decent third leg, but when Mawdsley took the baton, there was simply far too much to do even for one of the world\u2019s best anchor-leg runners.<\/p>\n
She edged her German rival in the battle for sixth, but with only two time qualifier spots available, it meant their hopes of another global final were dashed, with USA taking victory in 3:10.18 ahead of Britain (3:10.22) and South Africa (3:11.16).<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a collective, we\u2019re disappointed,\u201d said Raftery. \u201cWe set such a high standard for ourselves last year, winning in Rome and running so well in Paris that we expect to be in the final every time we come out to a major championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Becker will hope for a better showing in the 400m heats on Sunday. \u201cHopefully it\u2019ll go better than today,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t to be, we were hoping to be there tonight and it\u2019s obviously not what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Oisin Lane turned in a solid performance to finish 28th in the men\u2019s 35km race walk, the Mullingar Harrier clocking 2:41:36 in hot and humid conditions, with gold going to Canada\u2019s Evan Dunfee in 2:28:22.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very tough,\u201d said Lane. \u201cFor the last 10K I was just trying to finish, I wasn\u2019t thinking about my position. It\u2019s a huge privilege to be here. So many people dream of this, so many people train so hard for this and don\u2019t get this opportunity. I\u2019ve enjoyed my time here.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was another major championship disappointment for Eric Favors who finished 28th overall in the men\u2019s shot put qualification, throwing 19.19m, well down on his season\u2019s best. \u201cI\u2019m kind of upset, I\u2019m not going to lie,\u201d he said. \u201cI haven\u2019t had the time to process it but my preparation felt fine, I just couldn\u2019t get it done on the day.<\/p>\n
Laura Nicholson, Sophie O\u2019Sullivan and Sarah Healy will all be in action this evening in the heats of the women\u2019s 1500m, with the top six in each heat advancing to Sunday\u2019s semi-finals.<\/p>\n
World Athletics Championships \u2013 Live, RT\u00c9 Two, 9:45am Saturday, 10.30am Sunday; BBC Two: 9:30am Saturday; 12:05am\/11am Sunday<\/p>\n
Irish in action, Saturday (all times Irish)<\/p>\n
11.50am: Sarah Healy, Sophie O\u2019Sullivan, Laura Nicholson \u2013 Women\u2019s 1,500m heats<\/p>\n
Sunday<\/p>\n
11.30pm (Saturday): Fionnuala McCormack \u2013 Women\u2019s marathon<\/p>\n
1am: Nicola Tuthill \u2013 Women\u2019s hammer throw qualification<\/p>\n
1.35am: Andrew Coscoran, Cathal Doyle \u2013 Men\u2019s 1500m heats<\/p>\n
3.28am: Sarah Lavin \u2013 Women\u2019s 100m hurdles heats<\/p>\n
11.25am: Sharlene Mawdsley, Sophie Becker \u2013 Women\u2019s 400m heats<\/p>\n
1.05pm: Sarah Healy, Sophie O\u2019Sullivan, Laura Nicholson \u2013 Women\u2019s 1500m semi-finals*<\/p>\n
1.30pm: Efrem Gidey \u2013 Men\u2019s 10,000m final<\/p>\n
*Pending qualification<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The quartet of Jack Raftery, Sophie Becker, Conor Kelly and Sharlene Mawdsley might have had a difficult heat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-18384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}