Mawdsley a medal hope at World Indoors
By Shane Brophy
Sharlene Mawdsley is among a nine strong Ireland team competing at the World Indoor Athletics Championships taking place this weekend in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Newport AC runner picked up her first 400m national indoor title last week, and the newly crowned national champion will hope to take that form to Glasgow.
As part of the build-up to the World Championships, the 25-year-old competed at a world indoor tour meeting in Madrid last Friday night where she finished second in a time of 51.97, not her best by any means but a good tune up for next weekend with the heats of the women’s 400m are the second event on the opening morning at 10.20am this Friday, and should she progress, the semi-finals are later that evening at 8.50pm, with a potential final on Saturday night at 9.10pm.
Mawdsley was one of the stars of last year’s World Championships in Budapest, leading the Ireland women’s relay team to an eighth-placed-finish in the relay final which marked her sixth 400m of the week. She will once again head a strong looking women’s 4x400m team which also includes Sophie Becker, Phil Healy, Roisin Harrison, Rachel McCann, and Lauren Cadden. Those relay heats are on Sunday morning at 11.38am with the final later that evening at 8.30pm.
Elsewhere, Limerick’s Sarah Lavin, trained by Nenagh’s Noelle Morrissey, will spearhead the team in the 60m hurdles on the back of a string of outstanding performances, most recently clocking an equal PB of 7.91 on her way to claiming her sixth national indoor 60m hurdles title.
Another athlete heading to Glasgow full of confidence is Sarah Healy who will focus on the 1500m at these championships having broken the Irish senior indoor 1500m record with a stunning 4.03.83 earlier this month. The time took over two seconds off the previous record held by Ciara Mageean and came just one week after Healy broke Mary Cullen’s national senior indoor record over 3000m with 8.36.06.
21-year-old Israel Olatunde made it three senior 60m indoor titles in a row on Sunday, and the 2022 European 100m finalist will be looking to make his presence felt as he takes to another major international championships.
High Performance Director Paul McNamara commented on the selection: “This is an exceptionally accomplished group of athletes that head to Glasgow. They will be looking to make an impact at this highly competitive championships and are well positioned to do so. 2024 sees a busy championship schedule for many, with the Olympic Games the obvious target for all, and with World Indoors, World Relays, and European Championships key staging posts along the way.
“With that in mind, several athletes have opted to skip indoors, or end their season early to focus preparation on the summer months ahead with Ciara Mageean, Rhasidat Adeleke and Andrew Coscoran included amongst them. It’s a strong refection of the strength in depth in Irish athletics currently that we have several potential finalists or better in this squad.”