Newport awaits Mawdsley's Olympic bow

Newport is a town that knows how to celebrate its cherished sportspeople, but it has never experienced something quite like this as their own Sharlene Mawdsley gets set to make her Olympic bow in Paris this Friday evening.

By Thomas Conway

The 25-year-old will take to the track at 6.10pm in the semi-finals of the 4x400m Mixed Relay, one of three events she has qualified to compete in over the course of the eight days of track competition.

There is something special for an area having an Olympian, in their midst, a young woman who walked the streets, sat in classrooms, and did everything that a normal kid would do growing up in a town as small and parochial as this little settlement on the Tipp-Limerick border.

The community here is tight-knit, and it now awaits what could possibly be described as its greatest ever sporting moment - Sharlene Mawdsley, on the Olympic stage in the City of Lights, about to thrill the country with her performances on the track.

There have been others, other athletes, who have reached similar pinnacles - think Conor O'Mahoney and Tipperary's iconic All-Ireland win in 2010 - but this is just a little bit different.

This is a glorious chapter in the career of an athlete who has channelled adversity into a rich, positive energy, a 400-metre specialist who has bounced back from the cruellest of blows and re-emerged as one of the country's most talented and indeed most loved runners.

And now as she awaits her moment, preparing meticulously somewhere inside the Olympic village, Newport is getting high on anticipation.

The town is talking about nothing else. Sharlene Mawdsley is on the tip of every tongue, in the mind of every passer-by.

When she takes to the track in the Stade de France later this week, her home town will be running with her, every step, every stride, towards the finish, chasing silverware.

Continued on pages 68 & 69.