Newport rides crest of Mawdsley wave

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 first round of the 4x400m Mixed Relay, one of three events she has qualified for 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 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.

For Anne Fagan, chairperson of Newport Athletics Club and part mentor to a young Sharlene, this really is a moment to be cherished. It has never happened before - a Newport AC member, in the Olympic Games, running for club, country, community. And contesting for medals. Anne can’t hide her delight. She’s thrilled for Sharlene, and so is her hometown.

“It’s absolutely amazing, for everybody here in Newport, just amazing, what Sharlene has done,” she said.

“Everybody is so proud of all she’s achieved, for all her accomplishments to date. She’s gone beyond what anybody expected, as an athlete, in terms of her career and where she is now. And it’s just great for Newport Athletic Club to think that somebody who started off in the club as an eight year-old has now got to the Olympics, to the pinnacle of the sport.”

Sharlene’s exploits have given Newport AC a bounce. Membership numbers are up, the club is flying high. It now has a newfound status and also a newly developed 200-metre track, which is being installed at exactly the right time. There is a sense, a distinct sense, that Sharlene won’t be the last Olympian to emerge from this club. The whole thing, the whole Newport AC project, is blossoming, and who knows what the future will possibly bring.

“Our membership has gone up hugely, possibly to do with Sharlene, possibly to do with the fact that we have a new track, a new 200 metre tartan track - not finished quite yet of course, but we are using it,” Fagan added.

“Sharlene has been up there, she’s been up to the club and all the children are in awe of her, in awe of everything she does. She was up signing autographs and God knows what wasn’t signed - from inhalers and nebulisers to shoes, bikes, jerseys, jackets, everything you could think of! So, the kids are just thrilled by her and we, as a club and as a community, are just so proud of her.”

Vivacious eight year-old

Perhaps the most curious thing about Sharlene Mawdsley is the fact that, as a child growing up, she never really excelled in the sport. As Anne recalls, she began her career in Newport as a vivacious eight year-old with a wild streak of fun. There was probably talent there, but early on it didn’t really show. Anne remembers her heading off to county championships and competing in the B events, such was her level. The transformation, according to Anne, came in her mid-teens, when she began to mature a little bit, and began carving a reputation on the national stage.

“Sharlene would have started off at the age of eight, in the club, under the guidance of Fr. Bobby Fletcher,” she recalls.

“Funnily enough, she certainly didn’t stand out as being in any way different to any other child in the club. She was the same as all the kids her age - she was fond of the craic, didn’t take anything too seriously! But she went to all the county championships and didn’t medal in them. She actually entered the “B” events and I think she got a medal, just starting off.

“She didn’t really come to prominence until under-15s when she competed in the Nationals. Now she did compete once in the community games, at under-10 level, in the hurdles, and got a medal, so maybe that was the first sign of her talent, but as I said, really, she didn’t rise to prominence until her mid-teens. And believe it or not, her first medal for the club was actually in long jump!”

Had she taken a different path, we could be here talking about Mawdsley the long-jumper, or indeed the hurdle specialist. But it was the sprinter that eventually emerged, the 400-metre speed merchant who decided to remould her career and shift from the 100 and the 200 some years ago.

It was a wise and astute decision, probably influenced by her coach Gary Ryan, but now Mawdsley is among the best 400-metre runners in the country, second only to the mind-blowing Rhasidat Adeleke.

By her own admission, Sharlene’s focus is on the relay teams in Paris, the women’s and the mixed, whose prospects of a medal are very real. But she’ll give the individual 400-metres a rattle and could well advance from the heats if her form is good enough.

That said, Sharlene always looks to be in good form, not just in an athletics sense, but in general. So, says Ailín Kennedy, a coffee barista in the trendy Pónaire café on Newport’s main street. On Monday afternoon she’s just finished serving a customer an iced latté when she takes a little time out to speak to your correspondent. Ailín is a hardcore athletics enthusiast, a longtime member of Newport AC and a devoted Sharlene fan. For her, the 26 year-old superstar has actually changed perceptions of Newport as a town. Through her performances and her profile, she’s put the town on the map, as Ailín explains.

“What Sharlene has done, I think it has brought a lot of attention to a town which, although it wouldn’t be unknown, is kind of a quiet place,” Kennedy said.

“Newport AC was always such a big part of the town, and such a successful club, but what Sharlene has done has made it all ten times better. I’m actually a part of the athletics club myself and whenever we’re training as a club, whenever there’s an event, all the smaller kids go wild if they see Sharlene - because she’s the one that’s always on the television, the superstar.

“And then people will come to the club who have never done athletics before, and they’ll see Sharlene, recognise her from TV, recognise her success, and they’ll start running because of her. So, it has brought huge positivity to the club and the town. And even if you drive through the town, you’ll see signs left, right and centre wishing Sharlene well and celebrating her successes. It’s brilliant.”

Ailín was in awe of the opening ceremony last Friday night. It was ambitious, a festival of colour and lights with everything from Celine Dion singing atop the Eiffel Tower to Rafael Nadal striding past the Louvre with torch in hand. The rain may have bucketed down, but Ailín felt it was a resounding success. Her attention was drawn in particular to one aspect of Team Ireland’s kit - the county crests which each athlete wore on their sleeve.

“I thought that was a brilliant idea and a really nice touch,” she said.

“It makes that connection, between athlete and club, or athlete and town, all that bit more special. Or certainly that’s the case with Sharlene.”

Woman of the moment

Up the road in Hackett’s Pharmacy, Ella Hayde and her colleagues are busy sorting prescriptions and dealing with customers, but once Sharlene Mawdsley is mentioned everybody stops - because everybody wants to talk about Sharlene, regardless of where they are or what they’re doing. She’s the woman of the moment. You need only look around the place at all the posters and placards to get a sense of this town’s devotion to her, as Ella observes.

“If you look around the town everyone has flags up, posters everywhere,” she said.

“Just driving through the place, you have all these signs - from the primary school, from the secondary school, from the athletics club itself. It’s a special atmosphere around the place, a sense of excitement. Everyone is getting behind her and it’s just so exciting, the build-up. I’m really enjoying it.”

Part of the reason that Paris 2024 has captured imaginations so widely in this country is the fact that many of our athletes are medal contenders. Ella, like many others, believes the relay teams are in with a genuine shot at success. She also admires the entire squad. They’re role models, and that’s just as important as their performances on the track.

“They’re talented, this Irish squad, the relay teams in particular are really talented, and anything could happen on any given day. And they all carry themselves so well, Sharlene, the whole bunch. They’re well able to speak, they’re grounded, and I suppose that’s why so many people look up to them,” Hayde added.

Up to twenty people from Newport Athletic Club, including Anne Fagan, are heading out to Paris this week to watch Sharlene and Team Ireland light up the Stade de France. As an occasion it promises to be epic, but it won’t be all hugs and smiles. Once that starting gun is fired, the world’s best athletes will battle it out, mercilessly, in search of medals. There’s nowhere to hide at the Olympic Games. Dreams are made and shattered in milliseconds, as the whole world watches. The pressure is intense, the stakes enormous. Sport can be invigorating and beautiful, but it can also be cruel. Every athlete will be acutely aware of that.

But regardless of what happens on the track in Saint Denis, Sharlene Mawdsley will return to her home town a hero. Newport has perhaps never been as excited, nor has it ever been as appreciative and grateful to one individual for what they have done and achieved. It’s difficult to find the words to capture Sharlene’s special personality in a few sentences, but Ella Hayde does so perfectly.

“You can see how humble she is, and how down to earth she is,” Hayde added.

“She comes back down to the club so often and talks to the kids, signs autographs, poses for pictures. She’s so outgoing as well. And she supports everyone around her as well, which is the sign of a really good athlete and a really nice person. She’s someone to look up to, for the kids in the club, for people in the town of all ages, she’s inspiring, she really is.”