IT’S starting to get annoying now.
Just over 24 hours earlier, Rhasidat Adeleke was left crestfallen when her dreams of landing a medal were left in tatters following a fourth place finish in the 400m final.
Then on Saturday night, Adeleke was back at Stade de France on the penultimate night of action in Paris - and one of Ireland’s last opportunities to secure that elusive eighth medal – as the women’s 4x400m team left everything out on the track.
The quartet, made up of Sophie Becker, Adeleke, Phil Healy and Sharlene Mawsdsley, ran an Irish record time of 3:19.90 as they missed out on the bronze medal by just 0.18 seconds.
It was the first time a team has broken 3:20 and ended up empty-handed – indeed, their time would have been enough for silver in every Olympic final bar 1988.
Yet none of that matters when you are watching from the wings when the medals are handed out; those the heartbreakingly fine margins upon which Ireland have come out on the wrong side.
Emotions were still raw by the time they made their way through the mixed zone moments after the race. Adeleke was a bit shell-shocked for a second night in-a-row, Becker choked back tears, while Healy largely assumed speaking duties, as much as anything to spare her younger team-mates.
But the depth of disappointment, at least in the initial aftermath, was felt most keenly by Mawdsley. So often Ireland’s anchor leg hero, the Tipperary woman – celebrating her 26th birthday - ran a superb 49.14 and was third approaching the final bend.
However, she was agonisingly pipped at the line by Great Britain’s Amber Anning, who clocked a national record of 3:19.72. The United States took a dominant gold in a continental record of 3:15.27, with the Netherlands claiming silver in another national record of 3:19.50.
Mawdsley shook her head and stared off into space while the others talked, no idea what to say or how to process the hurt after coming so incredibly close to sealing a podium place. And when she did try to speak, tears quickly got in the way.
“Honestly I don’t have much words, it hurts so much,” she said.
“But again if we had come sixth it would have probably been less hard… 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.
“The best anchors in the world are on last leg and I have to believe that I deserve to be there as well. You have Amber Anning and Femke Bol behind you, I tried to go with Amber for as long as I could and you know you have Femke breathing down your neck but the line just came a little bit too late today. That’s how it is I guess.
“It hurts.”
Healy somehow remained stoic, playing the leadership role to perfection by providing perspective when needed.
“Yeah, look, it’s a phenomenal performance for the team,” said the Cork woman.
“I’m 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? Look the media throughout the week, it was like, oh, it’s going to be a tough ask to qualify. We qualified.
“Kelly [McGrory] played a phenomenal role yesterday in qualifying the team. We’ve a super squad for this relay team. It’s constantly changing.”
It was a strange place to be for Adeleke. The crushing disappointment of the previous evening was parked as she ran a sensational 48.92, and there were mixed emotions to be stood in the same place again, with the same end result.
“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.”
