'It’s difficult to always overachieve' - No final for Irish relay team as tearful Barr confronts the end

AND SUDDENLY THE momentum of Ireland’s mixed relay team is checked on the biggest stage of all. 

The team announced themselves by making the final in the Tokyo Olympics and then they replicated the feat at last year’s World Championships in Budapest, before then getting into the minting game: bronze in the world relays in the Bahamas in May and then, gloriously, gold at the European Championships a month later. 

But the team will not complete the Olympic cycle by completing the circle: there will be no second Olympic final. The top three teams from each of the this evening’s heats qualified for the final, along with the two fastest losers but a fifth-placed finish left the Irish quartet of Chris O’Donnell, Sophie Becker, Thomas Barr, and Sharlene Mawdsley relying on their time. A 3:12.67 was only enough for 10th overall. 

The biggest single factor in Ireland’s non-progression is the fact Rhasidat Adeleke did not run, instead prioritising her chances in the individual 400m event, the first round of which is on Monday. Becker and Mawdsley will run the individual event too, but Adeleke is the only one of the trio with a realistic shot at a medal. With none of the other top contenders in the event running a relay today, the fatigue of Adeleke having done so would have shifted her prospects from potentially winning a medal to definitely ruling it out. The margins are too fine, the standard too high. 

Still, the Irish quartert couldn’t quite peak as they needed. They were announced on the track as European champions, and they held the season’s best time when they arrived at the stadium. By the time Chris O’Donnell was on the starting blocks, however, that achievement was gone: the USA reset it by lowering their own world record in the first semi-final, winning in a scorching 3:07.41.

Paris are talking up the speed of their new purple track, and the first test proved an endorsement: the US set a new world record while all of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Jamaica set a new national record in the heat preceding Ireland’s. 

O’Donnell led Ireland off and handed the baton to Becker in fourth place, who had slipped to fifth by the point she passed it over to Barr. He surged on but couldn’t overhaul those in front, which left Mawdsley seeking to nervelessly carve out another closing miracle. This time, she didn’t have one. 

“We usually perform above our expectations, and today we probably finished where the paper suggested we should finish”, said O’Donnell. 

“It was a really close call in the end but I don’t think we can come home and say we had a bad run. We gave it our all and unfortunately today we just missed out.

“It’s difficult to always overachieve, but as well as that we’re disappointed.”

O’Donnell ran 0.1 seconds faster than he did in the European final, but Barr was 0.35 slower while Mawdsley was 0.66 slower than she was in Rome, where she split a superb 49.4.

The big difference obviously came in the second leg, where Becker clocked 51.37 where Adeleke ran a stunning 49.53. These are admittedly crude mathematics that don’t take into account a very different context, but the gap between those times would have snuck Ireland into the final in Paris. But it wouldn’t have made them medal contenders. 

“It was difficult because I’ve not been in that position this year with such a big gap so it felt a bit like a solo run”, said Mawdsley of her anchor leg. 

“It was really hard to judge my pace because I am really good at using other people in a relay and today I was out there on my own.

“But it was a case of just trying to leave it to the home straight and do the best that I could, my normal race pace. I did really feel like I was closing down on the girls. It fell a little bit short but honestly, the team had a great performance today. Like they said, if this was last year, we would have broken a national record. We’re European champions at the end of this season so we’re walking away really happy. Tom has his gold medal, nobody can take that from us.

“It’s disappointing but I said to the guys yesterday at our team meeting, ‘Bar a disaster, I didn’t care what happened. Get that baton around to me so I could call myself an Olympian’ and that’s exactly what I can do. If you see the tattoo on my forehead next week, don’t be surprised.” 

Barr was emotional in his post-race interview, as he admitted that this may have been his swansong. 

“I was getting a small bit emotional alright, because…it is setting in for me that it’s definitely my last Olympics. It could be my last race, I’m not sure yet.

“But I’ll take a step back and assess that. I’ve definitely enjoyed the road so far and I’ve definitely enjoyed this experience as well.” 

“Tenth in the Olympics, it’s crazy to say we are a bit disappointed with that”, added Becker. “But this team has been growing over the last three years, it has been harder to keep your place on the team. 400m running in Ireland is at a crazy level. Disappointing, but it’s been a great year for Irish relay running and it’s not over yet, we have the women’s [relay] at the end of the champs so, yeah, assess from there and the show must go on.” 

The show will indeed go on, but for Ireland it was slightly jarring to see the raised standards around them.