Sharlene Mawdsley was just off a plane at Dublin Airport on Thursday morning when an email popped up on her phone confirming her selection for the Paris Olympics. Despite effectively qualifying almost two months ago when running inside the automatic time for the 400m, she refused to engage in any talk about it. Not until everything was signed off.
“The first words I saw were ‘I am immensely proud to confirm your selection to represent Team Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games’…”, she says, later rereading the email aloud at the Team Ireland hotel in Blanchardstown, as if all meaning was still sinking in.
“And when I saw that I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going!’ I just didn’t want to jinx it and I don’t think I’m superstitious, but obviously I am a little bit. It’s honestly amazing, a dream come through. Today is the first day I really appreciate it, and until I got that email, I didn’t believe I was going, maybe a bit of PTSD from not going three years ago.
“It’s really special now to have the gear on, to know I’ll be an Olympian in two weeks’ time is insane.”
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Mawdsley was indeed left off the Irish athletics team for Tokyo, despite helping the mixed 4x400m relay team qualify. In truth, there was no leaving her behind this time, her name confirmed for the individual 400m along with Rhasidat Adeleke and Sophie Becker, part of the 23-strong athletics team in all.
All three have also been named in both relay squads (the mixed and women’s 4x400m), and while it’s still unclear what role Adeleke will play in either relay event, Mawdsley is now utterly committed to both as well as her individual 400m event.
“Well for me, I will go out on the track as many times as I can. If you tell me to run the marathon, I’ll be like ‘okay’. Well no, I wouldn’t go that far! But for sure I’ll go out on the track as many times as I can, either before my individual event or after.
“To be an Olympian means everything, and I’m a big team player, I love the relays. So I don’t see why I wouldn’t do it.
“I haven’t even looked at the schedule. I just refused to do anything, didn’t want to jinx it, or look too far ahead. But if I can compete in three events, I can look back on that in years to come and tell my kids, ‘Please God I did this, so you can too’.”
The mixed relay heats take place on the opening day of the track schedule on Friday, August 2nd, with the final on the Saturday night. The individual 400m heats then take place on the Monday, where Adeleke is one of the medal favourites.
The women’s 400m relay heats take place the following Friday, with the final on the Saturday, the same day Mawdsley turns 26. Having run five races in six days at the European Championships in Rome last month, anchoring the mixed relay to gold, and the women’s relay to silver, she understands well the demands and she’s prepared to rise to them again.
“I had a chest infection, everything, after Rome, but of course we were sleeping two hours a night from the high that we had. I wouldn’t take it back, but I ran in Madrid the week after Rome and I ran my second fastest time and I was on antibiotics and everything, but it was just to bring my focus back.
“It’s funny, when I come to Dublin – I train in Dublin once a week – I stop at Junction 14, and every time I’m there, people are asking me for pictures. That’s something that is really new.
“But to be able to push forward now and actually get ready for the Olympics is so, so exciting. I promised myself after Tokyo I would be there individually, to run under 50.95 [she ran 50.72 in May]. I wasn’t leaving that unturned this year. That was the target, and now it moves on from that, and it’s great to have Rhasidat, Sophie and myself in the individual 400m, then we move on to the relay as well.”
It is unlikely Adeleke will feature in the mixed relay heats, and although running the final is an option, Mawdsley still believes the Irish quartet can be competitive again in Paris.
“I think Rhasidat has to make the decision that’s best for her. And I would have no hard feelings at all. It would be a different situation, I don’t think I’m going to be challenging for a gold medal, not this year anyway. So I’m not in that position to be able to say what I would do.
“It will be harder, obviously Rhasidat is a star so it would be more difficult without her, but I would still be going in with that hunger, as I would whether she is there or not.”
