Mawdsley makes coaching change as she enters new chapter

By Shane Brophy

Sprinter Sharlene Mawdsley has made a coaching change as she aims to build on her superb 2024 season.

The 26-year-old Newport AC athlete has confirmed that she will now work with UK-based Tony Lester, moving on from former Tipperary Olympian Gary Ryan whom she has worked with for the past five years.

“I am very excited for this chapter of my career,” Mawdsley wrote in an Instagram post from London where she will be based for the post part.

The 26-year-old will now train in Lester’s group alongside Great Britain’s Nielsen twins, Lina (2024 Olympic 400m Hurdles bronze medallist) and Laviai (4x400m bronze medallist — mixed and women’s), and other relay specialists like Ama Pipi.

“Post Olympics I decided I wanted to try something new… so I’ve started something new,” she added.

“I have decided to move training group to train with @coach_t59 I am very excited for this chapter of my career, and I feel extremely lucky to be training with some really talented and likeminded people.

“I am very thankful for Gary (Ryan) who coached me the past number of years, I enjoyed my time under his guidance whilst he showed me his knowledge and expertise and helped me get to the biggest stages in our sport.

“I am also extremely grateful to my team and my loved ones who have supported me through this decision and continue to do so every single day.

“I’m excited to see what we can do together.”

Tony Lester has coached several other athletes to Olympic and World Championship medals including 400m stars Roger Black and Mark Richardson.

Sharlene Mawdsley made giant strides in the past years, knocking almost a second and a half off her PB, and anchoring Ireland to historic relay medals by running the fastest relay splits against the world’s best quarter-milers.

She played a key role for the Mixed 4x400m winning bronze at the World Relay Championships in May in the Bahamas and made the individual European 400m final where she finished eight, but the highlight of her career to date was anchoring the mixed relay team to an historic European gold in Rome and repeating it to lead the women’s 4x400m to a silver medal.

At the Olympic Games in Paris, Mawdsley competed in the individual 400m, as well as the women’s and mixed 4x400m relay. In the heats of the 400m, Sharlene ran a PB of 50.71s, but didn’t make the semi-finals.

Despite the mixed relay team failing to perform in their competition, she showed her prowess once more in the ladies relay, teaming up with Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, and Phil Healy where they finished an agonising fourth in the Olympic final.

The magnificent foursome had already made history when they stepped on the track by being the first ever Irish female relay team to contest an Olympic final, before confirming their status as truly world class with their sensational performance.

Knocking just shy of three seconds off their national record set in June when they won silver at the European Championships, the Irish quartet ran the race of their lives and were agonisingly just 0.18 behind the bronze medallists Great Britain with Sharlene anchoring the team brilliantly once again, running her fastest ever relay split (49.14 seconds) but was just run out of the medals by Dutch sensation Femke Bol, and Amber Anning of Great Britain who was fifth in the individual 400m final.