A blazing final leg of 49.09 seconds from Sharlene Mawdsley wasn\u2019t enough to help the mixed 4x400m team into Sunday\u2019s final, the Irish finishing fourth in round one in a swift 3:12.05 \u2013 a race won by the US in 3:09.82 ahead of Spain (3:09.89) and Australia (3:10.57).<\/p>\n
The Irish were led off by Jack Raftery, who split 45.72 and handed over to fellow Olympian Sophie Becker, who split 50.90. Rising star Se\u00e1n Doggett ran the third leg in 46.35, with Mawdsley detached from the top three when taking the baton for the anchor leg. The Tipperary sprinter clawed back a huge chunk of the deficit, but it wasn\u2019t enough to advance.<\/p>\n
They would have qualified for next year\u2019s World Championships in Beijing by advancing to the final, where six spots were also on offer for this year\u2019s World Ultimate Championship in Budapest. However, their chance of making Beijing is still alive, with four qualifying spots available in Sunday afternoon\u2019s repechage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed, we\u2019ve high standards, but we\u2019ll go again tomorrow,\u201d said Becker. \u201cThe first relay run is always a bit rusty no matter how much we practise. Nothing is the same as actually racing so getting a race into our legs again is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m actually happy with that,\u201d added Mawdsley. \u201cWe were a second and a half faster than [the World Championships in] Tokyo and we\u2019re in May, and I think that\u2019s really promising.\u201d Raftery said they \u201cexpect to make finals\u201d but had \u201ca decent run overall,\u201d adding, \u201cthere\u2019s a lot more out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was frustration for the Irish women\u2019s 4x100m team of Molly Scott, Ciara Neville, Mollie O\u2019Reilly and Sarah Leahy, which failed to finish after a botched exchange between O\u2019Reilly and Leahy. They will have a chance to redeem things in Sunday\u2019s repechage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t what we wanted,\u201d said Neville. \u201cWe really worked hard and we wanted to show that, so we\u2019re looking forward to coming back tomorrow, giving it our best and putting it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Irish women\u2019s 4x400m team of Rachel McCann, Jenna Breen, Molly Daly and Arlene Crossan turned in a strong run to finish fourth in round one in 3:29.93, coming up short of qualification for Sunday\u2019s final. But they will be back in action in the repechage, where four spots are still available at next year\u2019s World Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a class experience,\u201d said McCann. \u201cI pushed it on as best I could and all three girls had fantastic legs. It\u2019s such a different team to what we\u2019re used to and it\u2019s good to see we can run sub-3:30.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daly\u2019s participation created a small piece of history for Irish athletics, marking the first time ever that three generations of the same family have been capped for Ireland. It was a proud day for the 18-year-old Kilkenny athlete whose father, Rob, was capped 13 times at senior level, most notably when helping Ireland to World Indoor 4x400m bronze medals in 2004.<\/p>\n
Her mother, Fiona, was also a 400m specialist who was capped twice in 1996 while Molly\u2019s grandfather, Robert Norwood, represented Ireland over 400m in an international match in West Germany in 1974. \u201cIt\u2019s so cool to be out here and running at senior level,\u201d said Daly. \u201cI\u2019m soaking in this amazing experience and looking forward to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
World Athletics Relays<\/p>\n
Live, Sunday: Eurovisionsport.com, 12.55pm (Irish time)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A blazing final leg of 49.09 seconds from Sharlene Mawdsley wasn\u2019t enough to help the mixed 4x400m team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16452,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-429762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cathal-dennehy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429762","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=429762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}