Mixed day for Ireland's teams at World Relays but further chances await

IT WAS A mixed day of results for Ireland’s teams at the World Relays in Gaborone, Botswana.

Chasing qualification for the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing, Ireland were competing in the Mixed 4x400m, Women’s 4x100m, and Women’s 4x400m heats.

The team of Jack Raftery, Sophie Becker, Seán Doggett and Sharlene Mawdsley were up first in the Mixed 4x400m where they narrowly missed out on automatic qualification for the World Championships. They took 10th place overall after clocking 3:12.05 in Heat 1.

They will have another chance at securing qualification tomorrow at 1.20pm.

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“Kind of a mixed bag,” Raftery said. “We set such high standards for ourselves that we expect to make finals but we had a decent run overall. A solid run but we want more out of it.”

Becker added that it was a promising performance:

“I think the first relay run is always a bit rusty, no matter how much we practice. We’ve obviously been doing a lot of baton practices over the last few weeks on camp but nothing is the same as actually racing. Even getting a race into our legs since indoors is huge. We’re disappointed, we have high standards but it was a promising run so we’ll go again tomorrow.”

Doggett noted that the team is progressing in the right direction and that qualification is still possible. Mawdsley, who ran the final leg, added:

“I’m actually happy with that. We walked off the track in Tokyo knowing we didn’t qualify and we were around until the last heat there sitting in the fastest loser position. That’s something to be really proud of, a second and a half faster than in Tokyo, and we’re in May. It’s really promising.”

The women’s 4x100m team of Molly Scott, Ciara Neville, Mollie O’Reilly and Sarah Leahy were unable to get the baton around the track but will also have another opportunity to chase qualification tomorrow at 2.30pm.

“Disappointed that we didn’t get it around,” Scott explained. “We’ve worked quite hard over the past few weeks but we’re starting all over again with the relay, we’re building the programme up from the bottom back to the top, hopefully in LA.

“We’re going to make mistakes and hopefully we can go better tomorrow.”

Neville added that they’re hoping to build on the progress of last season.

“That wasn’t what we wanted today. We’ve really worked hard and we wanted to show that. We’re looking forward to coming back tomorrow and putting it together.”

Rachel McCann, Jenna Breen, Molly Daly and Arlene Crossan were the last to run for Ireland in the Women’s 4x400m. They ran a time of 3:29.93 to finish fourth in the second heat and will also have another attempt at qualification in Round 2 tomorrow at 1.44pm.