The Irish had come up short of the finals in each of the three events entered over the weekend \u2013 the women\u2019s 4x400m, mixed 4x400m and women\u2019s 4x100m \u2013 but their victory in the repechage made the 9,000km journey to Botswana worthwhile.<\/p>\n
They hit the line in 3:23.83 ahead of France (3:24.48) and Jamaica (3:25.38).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve given performances we can be so proud of,\u201d said Mawdsley, whose split was the fastest ever by an Irishwoman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis women\u2019s team has been together for the longest time and we thought, \u2018Let\u2019s give ourselves a performance to be proud of\u2019. And we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel McCann led them off with a 52.35-second opening leg, handing over to Sophie Becker who split 51.84, with Arlene Crossan having a huge run on the third leg, splitting 51.30.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe relay is won in the home straight and the two girls put me in a really good position,\u201d said Crossan. \u201cI wanted to give it to Sharlene in a good position, and I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mawdsley took the baton in third, but the Tipperary sprinter produced the best anchor leg of her career to power into first early in the home straight, securing one of the two qualifying spots available for Beijing next year.<\/p>\n
The previous fastest split by an Irishwoman was the 48.45 clocked by Rhasidat Adeleke at the 2024 World Relays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to chase and I knew if I got it in third, close by the Jamaican, we could come second but we won,\u201d said Mawdsley, who was Irish team captain for the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see the trust everyone has in me and that\u2019s so special. I don\u2019t take that role lightly and I\u2019m already looking forward to the next championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
With just over three months until the European Championships in Birmingham, the performance ignited hopes that Ireland can emulate the medal-winning feats by the women\u2019s and mixed 4x400m teams in Rome in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only May, there\u2019s still months to go until the Europeans and we\u2019re coming in with a gold and a silver from two years ago,\u201d said Becker. \u201cThere\u2019s pressure on us, but in a good way. I think we\u2019ll rise to the occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having targeted the mixed 4x400m on Saturday \u2013 and with insufficient time between races to allow a double on Sunday \u2013 Mawdsley and Becker both switched their focus to the women\u2019s 4x400m for day two, which left a below-strength Irish quartet struggling in the mixed 4x400m repechage.<\/p>\n
The team of Jack Raftery, Jenna Breen, Sean Doggett and Erin Friel finished seventh in 3:19.34, seven seconds down on the time Ireland had run with Mawdsley and Becker on board the previous day \u2013 today\u2019s race won by South Africa in 3:12.77.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Irish women\u2019s 4x100m team of Precious Akpe-Moses, Ciara Neville, Mollie O\u2019Reilly and Sarah Leahy finished fourth in their repechage, clocking 44.25 in a race won by Australia in 42.88.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t finish in the first round on Saturday after a botched final exchange and similar issues arose again between O\u2019Reilly and Leahy, who lost several metres at the final changeover after some failed attempts to hand off the baton.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Se\u00e1n Tobin and Sorcha Nic Dhomhnaill stormed to victory in course records at the Dublin City Council Dublin City Half Marathon on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
Tobin had struggled with injuries and illness over the past year but the 31-year-old Clonmel athlete was delighted to win his first competitive half in 63:11. Dundrum\u2019s Paul O\u2019Donnell was next best in 63:43, with John Travers third in 63:54.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got in front at 2km and probably pulled 100 metres ahead but I knew, based on the claps from the crowd, that if I let up at all from 16km onwards that Paul could sweep by me,\u201d said Tobin. \u201cSo I kept the foot down and felt incredibly smooth the whole way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nic Dhomhnaill, a 41-year-old schoolteacher from Newcastlewest in Limerick, clocked a course record of 71:25 to win the women\u2019s title.<\/p>\n
\u201cConditions were perfect, there was no headwind and I kept the pace pretty steady,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy plan was to break 72 minutes so I\u2019m delighted with that. I\u2019ve been off work for the past year because I had a baby last April. I\u2019m going back to school on Tuesday after a year off so, thankfully, it\u2019s a bank holiday weekend and I can recover tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maebh Brannigan set a PB in second of 74:47 with Sheila O\u2019Byrne taking third in 76:43.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish had come up short of the finals in each of the three events entered over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16452,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-430722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cathal-dennehy","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430722","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=430722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}