Of all the fourth-place finishes in Irish Olympic history – and remember there have been many – this one may linger longest. If only because the chance was unquestionably there and, as any Olympian will tell you, there is no guarantee that chance will come again.
It was agonisingly close – when is it ever not agonising? – with the Irish women’s 4x400m relay team finishing just short of the medal podium on Saturday night. They could hardly believe how close they had come.
In the end, the quartet of Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, Phil Healy and Sharlene Mawdsley finished in 3:19.90, taking a whopping three seconds off the Irish record, but finishing just short of a medal, Britain winning bronze ahead of them in 3:19.72, also a national record. That’s how close it was – 0.18 of a second.
The USA were the clear winners of the gold medal in 3:15.27, also a national record and helped in no small part by the sensational 47.71 second split by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who on Thursday night in Paris had also won the 400m hurdles in a world record of 50.37 seconds.
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But the battle for silver and bronze was so, so close, the Dutch winning silver in 3:19.50. Femke Bol brought them home with an anchor leg split of 48.62, ahead of Mawdsley, who closed in 49.14.
It was Adeleke, running in the second leg just 24 hours after also finishing fourth in the individual 400m on Friday night, who took Ireland right into medal contention, moving them into second with her split of 48.92 seconds on a leg where Jamaica dropped the baton (as Andrenette Knight accidentally bumped into Adeleke).
Healy did her level best to hold on to second, running 50.94 on her third leg, and held her position, and despite another blazing effort by Mawdsley on the anchor leg, the Tipperary runner could not quite finish in front of Great Britain and the Dutch.
“Honestly, I feel mixed emotions,” said Adeleke, the 21-year-old clearly fired up by her disappointment in the 400m the night before. “I’m really, really proud of the team for us to even be in an Olympic final and to come fourth. I think fourth place is obviously the worst place to come. It’s just so close to a medal but if you had told us that we’d be coming fourth at the Olympic Games last year, we’d be so delighted.
“But it’s because we’re here now, and we’re such competitors. And we know we have so much to give, but that was an amazing performance. I’m so proud of them. So, proud of us even being here at this point. And I think we’re really going to be a threat in years to come.”
For Healy, that feeling was entirely mutual: “It’s a phenomenal performance for the team. We shattered the national record coming with a 3:19, fourth in an Olympic Games. So proud of the girls. This team belongs at the world stage, we’ve now come fourth at the Olympic Games. Who predicted that we’d come fourth before here?
“The media throughout the week, it was like, ‘oh, it’s going to be a tough ask to qualify’. We’ve a super squad for this relay team. It’s constantly changing. To shatter that Irish record, it shows that we did perform, out of our skin.”
For Mawdsley, who also celebrated her 26th birthday on Saturday, the narrow loss of a bronze medal was understandably difficult to talk about.
“Honestly I don’t have much words, it hurts so much,” she said. “If we had come sixth, it would have probably been less hard,” she said. “but we wanted that medal so bad and I feel that I fell short because you run the last leg, and there’s been so many days when I’ve been placed for my last leg but today it just didn’t go my way and that’s how the game goes.
“I’m sure I ran fast but it just wasn’t enough so yeah, it’s heartbreaking. But again, if you had told us last year that we would come fourth at the Olympics, I wouldn’t have believed anyone. It’s rough, but that’s how sport goes.”
Becker, who ran the opening leg in 50.90, said: “We’re absolutely devastated. I think in a few days’ time it’s not going to hurt as much. We’re world class, like. We knew if we ran a national record we’d be in the mix, I don’t think any of us believed we would run 3.19, that’s just absolutely phenomenal.
“I’m so proud of us, we left it all on the track. I don’t think 3.19 was ever on the cards for us and now that we’ve run it, why can’t we go faster?”
On the motivation of her fourth place in the individual 400m on Friday night, Adeleke said: “I’m just as hungry as ever and I think there is just always more to do and I’m just going to get down to the nitty-gritty things that I need to improve my performances.
“I’m really grateful to be healthy and to be able to move on. I’m really grateful to my team and everyone who supported me. The girls here, I just think there is so much more in the future we’ll be able to get to the point we always dreamed of.”
