Mawdsley is full of belief heading to World Athletics Championships

By Thomas Conway

Sharlene Mawdsley is flying high. The Newport woman’s athletic career is on an upward trajectory, and her uptick in form is coming at just the right time.

Last Sunday week, Mawdsley cruised to victory in the women’s 400 metres at the National Championships in Santry, coasting home in a time of 51.94 seconds to secure a first national title in the event. Technically speaking (when one removes Rhasidat Adeleke, who did not compete), she is now the fastest woman on this island over 400 metres, but the 26-year-old has broader ambitions.

This weekend, she’ll be competing at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where she’ll line out alongside global heavy hitters such as Ireland team-mate Adeleke, Femke Bol of the Netherlands and Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek.

It will act as the perfect litmus test for the Newport athlete, following what has been, in effect, a breakthrough season. Next year’s Olympic Games in Paris are now shimmering on the horizon, and Mawdsley wants to be there - both as a singular athlete competing in her own individual event, and as part of the 4x400 metre women’s and mixed relay teams whom she will compete in in Budapest also.

She has lofty ambitions, but it pays to be ambitious in modern day athletics. Without that streak of confidence, that glimmer of self-belief, an athlete can fall to the wayside. But Mawdsley is determined to avoid that fate. She has set her sights on competing at the top table, and the Newport woman is driven to achieve her objectives.

The performance at the National Championships was a powerful statement. Mawdsley had missed the last several editions of the championships due to both injury and illness. She wanted to re-announce herself back on the national stage, and she did so with aplomb.

“Yeah, it was hugely satisfying to win that national title,” she admitted.

“The last time that I had actually won a national title was in 2019, and that was also the last time I had finished a race because in 2020 I pulled up due to injury and then last year I had Covid, so it was literally all guns blazing going into that race last Sunday week. There was no way I was going to go out and lose - I was going out to try and put on a show, and thankfully I managed to. But that has given me a huge confidence boost ahead of the World Championships, it really has.”

MORE TO COME

So how far can the Newport native go, and can she exceed expectations to compete in the highest echelon of her event? Mawdsley is currently running sub-52 second races on a regular basis. But the global powerhouses in her industry have whittled their times down into the forties. The aforementioned Femke Bol, widely considered the best in the world in the 400 metres, cascaded to last year’s European title in Munich in a time of 49.44 seconds. Kaczmarek wasn’t far behind. She scooped silver in 49.94.

At a cursory glance, it might appear as if Bol is streets ahead of the pack. Mawdsley, on the other hand, hasn’t come close to breaking that fifty second barrier, but her performances this year suggest that the Newport woman is maturing.

Physically she looks more powerful, more explosive, but her mental and emotional resilience has also improved. Her confidence was decimated by her surprise omission from the mixed 4x400 metre relay team prior to the Tokyo Games in 2021, but she seems to have channelled the negativity of that experience into a desire to improve and elevate herself to the top table of world athletics.

Pressure and opportunity

These World Championships will be laden with pressure, but also opportunity. Perform well in the Hungarian capital and suddenly Mawdsley may find herself on a path to Paris, for next Summer’s Olympic Games. But that’s still a year away, and the Newport athlete is very much focused on the present. She’s taking it one step at a time. That has always been her modus operandi, and she has no intentions of changing it in Budapest next week.

“I’m just going to take it one race at a time,” she insisted.

“Because, when you start looking too far ahead that's when you can get a bit lost and lose focus, in my experience anyway. So, it’s just literally about taking it one race at a time.

“When I go to Worlds, I have a couple of races to focus on - I have the mixed relay, and then I have the women’s 400 and then obviously the women’s relay, so I have a lot on my plate.

“And the fact that I’m doing both relays, I am probably jeopardising my individual event a little bit, but I’m backing myself that I have all the training done and that I’ll be able to perform two days in a row if I really need to.”

The sheer number of the races Mawdsley has committed to in Budapest will stretch the Newport athlete to her physical limits, and defying fatigue may prove a major challenge for the University of Limerick graduate. But she has worked this past year, and under the tutelage of coach, Kilcommon native Gary Ryan, she has elevated her levels of conditioning and endurance.

Fatigue might well become an issue, but the Newport woman has strategies to cope and recover. Another runner might have been tempted to forego some of the relay events in order to protect themselves for their own individual races, but that’s not Mawdsley’s style. Ultimately, she’s a team player, and ultimately, she adores both relay teams in which she competes. Her confidence levels have also reached a new high, at an opportune time. The Newport woman has plenty of experience of career setbacks, but her form has been flowing in 2023.

“I think I am growing in confidence,” Mawdsley added.

“I mean, I had a couple of years which didn’t really go to plan and then obviously I had the disappointment of not getting selected for Tokyo that time.

“But this is my first year in which I’m going to a World Championships in good form, knowing that I actually deserve to be there. Before I was going there with relay teams and just hoping to get a run, but now I’m competing individually, and I feel I’m an important part of each relay set-up.

“And I think relays have become a big part of Irish athletics, a really important part, so I just want to be there, to show that I’m a team player and to do the best I can for the team on the day.”

Perform well in Budapest, and doors may suddenly open, the horizon may suddenly shine a little brighter. Qualifying for Paris isn’t occupying her mind at present - Mawdsley is focused on the now. But make no mistake about it, the Olympics is the ultimate goal. These World Championships could reveal much in terms of how Team Ireland will fare in next summer’s games. Irish athletics is currently bubbling with febrile excitement. Superstars such as Adeleke and sprinter Israel Olatunde are the celebrity figures, but behind them is a talented group of athletes across multiple disciplines, each competing at the highest level and vying for success.

At some point in the not-so-distant future, one or more of those athletes may well appear on the medal podium. Sharlene Mawdsley - an integral component of both the women’s and the mixed 4x400 relay teams - may be amongst them. The future is hers to grasp, but right now she’s just relishing the present.