Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 12 Jun 2024
IRELAND HAVE SECURED more track success at the European Championships in Rome tonight, with the women’s 4x400m relay team winning silver at the Stadio Olimpico.
The team of Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, Phil Healy and Sharlene Mawdsley recorded a new national record time of 3:22.71, but were pipped by the Dutch team of Lieke Klaver, Cathelijn Peeters, Lisanne de Witte and Femke Bol to gold.
The previous Irish national record was 3:24.38 – set by the same quartet at the World Relays in the Bahamas last month.
Their success continues a brilliant championships for Ireland, with Ciara Mageean winning 1500m gold earlier this week after Adeleke and Mawdsley were part of the Ireland mixed 4x400m team who stormed to gold last Friday.
Ireland's women's 4x400m relay team of Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, Phil Healy and Sharlene Mawdsley have secured a silver medal at the European Championships in a new Irish record time of 3:22.71. pic.twitter.com/6jTiX7zJok
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) June 12, 2024
The Dutch went into tonight’s race as the defending European champions, with three of their team alreading winning individual medals at these championships – Bol taking gold and Peeters winning bronze in the 400 metre hurdles, while Klaver claimed bronze in the 400m.
Running in lane six, Becker was first up for Ireland, completing her leg in 52 seconds.
The Dutch led through the first 400m before Adeleke ran a stunning leg to bring Ireland into first after passing Peeters on the turn – her split of 49.36 the second fastest across the race.
Healy delivered a strong third leg but was just overtaken by De Witte approaching the final handover, clocking a time of 51.51.
Mawdsley then chased down Bol on the final leg with another superb run to secure silver for Ireland – her time of 49.84 faster than Bol’s 50.45.
With four medals secured, this is now Ireland’s most successful European Championships.
There is further Irish involvement in two more finals tonight.
Brian Fay, Efrem Gidey, Peter Lynch, Cormac Dalton and Barry Keane run in the men’s 10,000m final at 8.44pm, with Andrew Coscoran in the men’s 1,500m final at 9.26pm.
Adeleke said there’s more to come from Ireland’s brilliant relay team after tonight’s stunning silver medal in the women’s 4x4oom final at the European Championships.
The Irish team set a new national record time of 3:22.71 to take silver at the Stadio Olimpico, as the defending European champion Dutch team won gold.
Adeleke, a gold medal winner in last Friday’s mixed 4x400m final, had Ireland in pole position with a stunning second leg, her split of 49.36 the second fastest across the race.
“It was so exciting,” Adeleke told RTÉ.
“Just to be out there with the girls, I love running the relays because it’s just so fun. We were in the tunnel cracking jokes and having the best time ever (before the race). So just to be out here, regardless of how we did, and on top of that to win the medal, it just couldn’t be better.
“I’m so proud of them and I’m proud of everyone, the two subs, the coaches, everyone back in Ireland, everyone who came to support us, it all makes us happy.”
“I honestly can’t believe it,” added Sophie Becker, who was out first for Ireland and ran her leg in 52 seconds.
“I’m so proud of these girls, I love you, I’m speechless! This is everything we dreamed of. 3:22, when the national record was 3:26 honestly I thought we’d never break that, and here we are two years on, 3:22, I cannot believe it.
“The crowd, the Irish here when they called us coming in, it’s just everything I’ve dreamed of.”
The silver represents the first senior medal of Phil Healy’s career. The Cork athlete ran 51.51 on one of the greatest nights of her career, having previously considered retirement.
“I knew I was going to get it in a great position with Rhasidat going before me, and I just wanted to lead it from the front,” Healy said.
This is just massive. It’s the stuff of dreams and what we trained for. This is so, so special.
“I definitely contemplated retiring last summer many, many times and I stuck with it. It makes it all worth it for special moments like this and obviously I’m the oldest member of this relay team.
“I remember back to my first senior championships in 2014 and that’s a long time ago. Year after year competing on the stage and it’s my first major medal so it’s very special and makes the last few tough years so worthwhile.”
“Honestly it’s amazing,” said Mawdsley. “I’m absolutely beyond exhausted at this point. I was telling myself the whole warm-up that it was just one more lap but the girls got me through that run.
“Honestly I could hear them cheering, I thought maybe I had Femke down the home straight but just the legs were a little bit dead today. But honestly, to win a medal, I’m so thankful we were able to do it with the girls today. The mixed was amazing but there’s something special with this group of girls. Rhasidat said it, we have the best time and like Sophie said, I love them all.”
Written by Ciarán Kennedy. The Journal publishes the biggest breaking news in Irish and international sport but for all of the 42′s insightful analysis and sharp sportswriting, subscribe here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
What about if they worked a bit harder, less holidays, longer hours? Just like the rest of us
@Paddy: Our constitution says we need one for every 20/30000 citizens
@Tom: we should have a referendum to change the number of TD’s in The Dail. There are far too many already and with the increase there’ll be another 14 freeloaders ie. teachers, publicans & landlords!
@Tom: Change the constitution far too many TDS already
@DJ D: How many of those categories are TDs?
@Tom: We need to change the constitution to allow a lower ratio of TD’s per person as we have too many as it is. One TD per 50k people is more than sufficient
@Tom: can u tell us what size of classrooms should teachers teach???
@Paddy: that’s asking a lot now,you obviously didn’t see the effect that had when Eamon Ryan do a few extra hours
@Tom: so change it to 50,000
Maybe that’s a decision for their employers, IE,the taxpayers
@Brian molloy: The same when it comes to wage increases
@Brian molloy: Changing the ratio would be a change in the constitution which needs a referendum.
@Keith Tobin:
TDs haven’t been able to set their own salary for more than a decade, it’s linked to public sector pay.
“Something has to give” of course something will give, our young people will have to emigrate in there thousands again soon enough……crisis averted
@Tom: exactly
@Tom: they don’t care. Any amount of people will come from less well off countries will come for a wage. TDs could care less if everyone under 25 left. It’s not about building society its about milking what’s there dry.
@Tom:
CSO figure say that more Irish people are returning than are leaving
Increase Garda numbers , nurses, Doctors ,,,,TD should stand for Total Disgrace.
Let’s be honest TDs don’t run this country Civil Servants do. This country needs more doctors, nurses, teachers, prisons, Gardai, carers, and son on. The last thing this country needs right now is more TDs.
More money down the drain and more waffle sickening
Maybe stop our population from increasing with illegal immigrants and look after our own – just a thought that would never occur to our supposed representatives.
@Thomas Sheridan:
We need more immigration, who do you think is going to build the housing we need?
@P.J. Nolan: Not many of the recently arrived immigrants, I suspect. Certainly far less than the number of them looking for state accommodation.
@P.J. Nolan: Not too many Ukrainians building house for us, even though they have work visas. Only ones working are working at night. Great addition to the country.
Who decides on these constraints figures 1td/30000 .Sure only half of the people vote most of the time anyway so its nearer 1td/15000.No other country would put up that kind of largesse.
@Willie Marty: The ratio is set out in the constitution.
@Gareth: needs changing to bring it into line with our European partners
We have enough TDs don’t need any more spongen of the taxpayers
The same with the number or Gardai, Nurses, Teachers, Doctors, Army personnel, hospital beds etc etc etc!!
Taking what the commission said into account, the amount if tds will increase. But here lies the problem, county borders. What we have now is a Dublin, Cork, Galway and now limerick tearing away from the rest of the country with jobs, investment, housing, road, and just about everything else. Rural problems are not being tackled, hence mass amount of young people moving to the big 4 cities. Where the government said they were going to tackled this ,the opposite has happened. Maggie Thatcher politics or should I say Tory politics being employed by FF and FG won’t mention greens as they are clueless. Its stands out.
@james hennessy: rural Ireland is over populated, no point in throwing good money after bad.
@james hennessy: Could you please explain a bit more the “Rural problems are not being tackled” part?
I live in the city and honestly want to hear it.
@james hennessy: ‘Big Cities’ ? – there is still a boreen between Cork/Limerick/Waterford – The further from the pale is the further from investment.
There’s more pressing things needed than TDs. More housing is needed. More doctors and nurses. Even more hospitals are needed. Sligo university hosp has to cover a massive area that is far too vast for one hospital. Government need to cop themselves on. Enough is enough now.
@Helen O REGAN: This is the Constitution, not the Government.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: time to change it so more important things than fat cats yaping in the dail and little or nothing being done they’ve had over TEN years with an overwhelming massive housing crisis, not good enough they’re supposed to be making decisions thinking and planning long term solutions it’s getting worse and has been for too long kicking the can down the road with lame excuses and passing blame they were put into power to run the country not line they’re pockets with massive salaries and expenses which they are there no denying that
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: it would appear the constitution is in need of drastic change as tds are surplus to requirements, not fit for purpose and a complete drain on society. However I’m interested in hearing one benefit a td is to the public, the tax paid & paying public that is.
Good excuse to raise tax to pay their wages
No more School Teacher’s, Doctors, Tree Huggers or Anyone taking the verbally P Should be Allowed to Stand. WE See How this Doesn’t Work for The People!!!
@Mick Hanna: Don’t vote for them, but banning people from standing in election is the compleye antithesis of democracy.
Like it or not, this is democracy. The alternative isn’t worth thinking about. Although there are some gombeens on here who seem to think democracy is a joke and something to throw away. Probably don’t even vote because they’ll put the X in the wrong place.
Personally, I think change the Constitution. In fact, every hundred years they should change it to reflect society.
1 TD for every 20/30,000 citizens is too low. Why not increase it to 40k given the ongoing increase in population.
Increased population because of all our friend who are shipped in
Just replace TD’s whith chatGPT. Or if we need an increase in TD’s reduce their wages and expenses inline.
Up here for thinking
So obviously they are not up to the job. Sorry but we knew that already.
One wonders how the likes of Jim O Callaghan TD and Barrister manages to be in the dail, and also be a successful barrister down the four courts?
TDs can’t be doing much if that’s the case.
I’ve e mailed his secretary a few times to ask, but never got an answer.
the number of tax lines on our payslips needs review as we can’t keep pace with the crazy accelerated cost of living.
If they done a bit of work they would have a better chance of keeping pace sack all of them
Is it right to say the UK has 104k / MP(650 mps)?
If ireland had those numbers, then ireland would need 2256 TDs per the constitution. So what should we change?
@Padhraig Farrell: Really? 100k per TD = 10 TD’s per million population.
That would mean -51- TD’s by the current 5,056,935, correct?
They need to get their fingers out of their preverbal and do some work! No more swine in the trough ! We don’t get enough return on investment!
Why dont some of the clever clogs on here with a the answers tun for election, plenty seats to contest, even new constituencies. But of course that would actually mean doing something Instead of being angry behind a keyboard and criticize everything and everybody, which is easy
have your say