IRELAND’S SHARLENE MAWDSLEY and Sophie Becker will turn their attention to the women’s 4x400m relay after they both failed to progress from the individual 400m repechage round on Tuesday morning.
With only six semi-final places up for grabs across four repechage heats, Tipperary’s Mawdsley and Wexford’s Becker knew that they would either need to win their respective heats or clock one of the two fastest non-automatic qualification times.
Mawdsley’s time of 51.18 seconds was nearly a half-second slower than the personal best of 50.71 she set in Monday’s heats, and only good enough for third place behind Ella Onojuvwevwo of Nigeria (50.59) and Justyna Swiety-Ersetic of Poland (50.89 SB).
“I’d have had to run a PB to have qualified and I did that yesterday, which was annoying,” Mawdsley said afterwards.
I think I ran everyone else’s race bar my own which is disappointing, but I’m not too disappointed. It’s the Olympic Games. I’m showing up when it counts.”
Running in the fourth and final heat, Becker knew that she would likely need to run a massive personal best in order to progress.
She finished second in 51.28 behind Kendall Ellis of the United States, who qualified with a time of 50.44.
“I produced my second-fastest time ever; I can’t be greedy,” Becker said.
The perfectionist in me wants more but I have to be happy with that.
“I’ll rest up tonight, shake out tomorrow and then meet with the relay on Thursday. You can’t dwell on this race too long.”
Both Mawdsley and Becker will return to action at the Stade de France on Friday morning for the opening round of the women’s 4x400m relay.
