Ireland’s 4x400m team has finished eighth in Sunday evening’s relay final rounding out a hugely successful nine days for Team Ireland at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

The team of Sophie Becker, Roisin Harrison, Kelly McGrory and Sharlene Mawdsley crossed in a time of 3:27.08 having qualified for this evening’s final as one of the fastest non-automatic qualifiers on the back of yesterday’s stunning 3:26.18 SB which was just 0.12 off the national record.

Sharene Mawdsley, who took to the track for her sixth 400m of the week spoke of her pride in the performance after the race.

“I’m so proud of this team. We ran our hearts out over the last two days, and we’ve finished with a top-eight finish. We can’t thank the Irish support enough, it’s been amazing. We felt like we were locals stepping out onto the track and every cheer really drove us on so thanks so much to everyone for the support.”

The medals went to the Netherlands (3:20.72 WL), Jamaica (3:20.88 SB), and Great Britain & NI (3:21.04 SB).

Today’s result rounds out Irish involvement at Budapest 2023 and continues the upward trajectory of Irish performances at major international championships.

The last nine days have seen Irish athletes secure Olympic qualification, break three national records, and claim four superb top-eight finishes which augers well heading into another busy 2024 track and field season.

Most encouragingly, the depth of performance continues to shine through with Irish athletes securing twelve top-24 positions in Budapest, compared to the nine top-24 placings at the World Championships in Oregon last year.

The target was to exceed that number of nine, one that was met and beaten.  The fact that we did not add to the six medals that Ireland has won through the history of the World Championships is less important in development terms than this depth.

“A very positive championships for us,” said Athletics Ireland Director of High-Performance Paul McNamara .

“We had targets coming here and the team had exceeded them all. We’ve secured four top-eights at a World Championships which to the best of my knowledge has never been achieved before by an Irish team.”

“We’ve twelve top-24s which is the equivalent of a semi-final off 20 starts so all targets have very much been exceeded. We have national records, personal bests, and season’s bests, so all the evidence of tangible successful championships in terms of our key markers have been hit and we’ll look back at Budapest very positively from a performance perspective.”

Team Ireland Results Summary:

Ciara Mageean – Women’s 1500m: 4th + NR
Rhasidat Adeleke – Women’s 400m: 4th
Mixed 4x400m Relay: 6th
Women’s 4x400m Relay: 8th
Sarah Lavin – Women’s 100m Hurdles: Joint 10th + NR
Kate O’Connor – Women’s Heptathlon: 13th (*Personal best in 100m hurdles)
Sarah Healy – Women’s 1500m: 14th + NU23R
Mark English – Men’s 800m: 19th
Sharlene Mawdsley – Women’s 400m: 22nd + Personal Best
Andrew Coscoran – Men’s 1500m: 22nd
Eric Favors – Men’s Shot Put: 23rd
Brendan Boyce – Men’s 35km Race Walk: 24th
Sophie O’Sullivan – Women’s 1500m: 25th + Personal Best
Louise Shanahan – Women’s 800m: 27th
Brian Fay – Men’s 5000m: 31st
Nick Griggs – Men’s 1500m: 40th
Christopher O’Donnell – Men’s 400m: 40th
John Fitzsimons – Men’s 800m: 44th
Luke McCann – Men’s 1500m: 52nd
David Kenny – Men’s 20km Race Walk: DNF

National Records broken in Budapest:

Sarah Healy (1500m): 3:59.68 NU23R
Sarah Lavin (100m Hurdles): 12.62 NR
Ciara Mageean (1500m): 3:56.61 NR