{"id":466571,"date":"2026-05-25T18:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/466571\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:58:12","slug":"three-lifetime-bests-inside-five-days-puts-sharlene-mawdsley-on-exciting-new-trajectory-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/466571\/","title":{"rendered":"Three lifetime bests inside five days puts Sharlene Mawdsley on exciting new trajectory \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A terrific series of three lifetime bests inside five days has suddenly put Sharlene Mawdsley<\/a> on an exciting new trajectory. It also leaves her in line for selection in four events at the European Championships in Birmingham in August, creating a possible dilemma in terms of her individual and relay aspirations.<\/p>\n

After smashing her 400 metres best to win the Savona international meeting in Italy on Wednesday, running 50.52 seconds, The Tipperary athlete was back on the track at the IFAM outdoor meeting in Brussels on Saturday evening, this time winning in 50.17 seconds. Just like she did in Savona, she dominated the race from the gun, coming home almost a second clear of Belgium\u2019s Helena Ponette.<\/p>\n

Then she came out in the same meeting on Sunday and won the 200m in another lifetime best of 23.09 seconds, inside the B standard qualifying time for Birmingham, having also hit the A standard in the 400m.<\/p>\n

It means the 27-year-old athlete has improved from her previous 400m best of 50.71 seconds, set at the Paris Olympics in 2024, to 50.17, after just two individual outdoor races so far this season. It also means she\u2019s within touching distance of breaking the 50-second barrier, with Rhasidat Adeleke<\/a> being the only other Irish athlete to achieve that defining mark in women\u2019s sprinting. <\/p>\n

Mawdsley is currently the second fastest European so far this season, behind Britain\u2019s Yemi Mary John, who ran 49.85 at the Tokyo International meeting earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland’sIreland\u2019s Sharlene Mawdsley celebrates after running the anchor leg for the 4x400m women’s relay in Botswana. Photograph: Inpho <\/p>\n

This level of progression is no surprise given Mawdsley had already shown promising early-season form with a superb anchor leg for Ireland in the 4x400m relay at the World Relays in Botswana at the start of the month, where she was given a split time of 48.34.<\/p>\n

Mawdsley turns 28 on August 10th, the same day the European Championships start in Birmingham, where she could end up being selected in four events: the 200m and 400m, plus the women\u2019s and mixed 4x400m relay. The 200m won\u2019t take any priority, though it\u2019s likely Mawdsley will be part of the mixed 4x400m, which is a straight eight-team final in Monday\u2019s first evening session.<\/p>\n

Round one of the 400m takes place on the Wednesday, followed by the semi-finals on the Thursday. The heats of the women\u2019s 4x400m are on the Friday, the final of the 400m is on the Saturday, with the 4×400 final then set for Sunday\u2019s closing session.<\/p>\n

If Mawdsley does make that 400m final, it\u2019s unlikely she\u2019ll race the heats of the 4x400m in between, and the same with Adeleke, who won the individual silver medal in Rome four years ago, running her Irish record of 49.07 seconds. There may be enough depth in the women\u2019s 400m for the Irish women to qualify without them, although any decision on that front won\u2019t happen until closer to the event. <\/p>\n

In another breakthrough performance over the weekend, Anna McCauley became only the second Irish women\u2019s multieventer to break 6,000 points in the heptathlon, scoring 6,069 points to win at the Mehrkampf meeting in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old from the City of Lisburn AC is also inside the B standard for the European Championships, meaning she\u2019ll possibly join Kate O\u2019Connor. McCauley set personal bests in three of the seven events, including the 200m (24.07), the javelin (39.35), and the 800m (2:10.54).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A terrific series of three lifetime bests inside five days has suddenly put Sharlene Mawdsley on an exciting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,20871,112],"class_list":["post-466571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sharlene-mawdsley","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466571","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=466571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}