Such is the pressing schedule and demand of any indoor athletics championships that fortunes and failures can be quickly and easily flipped, and that’s only part of the challenge facing the Irish athletes in the Dutch city of Apeldoorn over the next four days.
Traditionally a three-day competition, the European Athletics Indoor Championships have morphed into four, Thursday evening’s opening session at the Omnisport Arena (live on RTÉ 2, 6pm to 9.25pm) also accommodating the mixed 4x400m relay, staged at this level for the first time as a straight six-team final.
The team of 19 Irish athletes certainly arrived with plenty of medal-winning potential. The team came home empty-handed in 2021 and 2023, but this year four Irish athletes are ranked in top three positions among the final entries, based on European indoor performances this season. They are Sarah Healy (ranked second in the 3,000m) and Kate O’Connor (second in the pentathlon), with Andrew Coscoran and Mark English ranked third in the 3,000m and 800m respectively.
English is the only one on the team who has won medals at this level before (800m silver in 2015 and bronze in 2022) and Ireland’s two relay interests – in the mixed 4x400m, and the women’s 4x400m, both straight finals – will fancy their chances. That pressing schedule, however, means the mixed event may be without any members of the quartet which won European outdoor gold in Rome last June.
There’s no Rhasidat Adeleke, as her focus is firmly on the summer ahead. Chris O’Donnell isn’t racing indoors this season either, and Thomas Barr is retired. Sharlene Mawdsley would normally be first in line for the anchor leg, but she’s also got to consider the individual 400m on Friday morning (10.55am Irish time), with the semi-finals also set for Friday evening (6.58pm).
Lauren Cadden and Rachel McCann also made the individual 400m on ranking quota, further limiting the options, although Mawdsley might well be up the challenge and the prospect of another relay medal. Conor Kelly, 17, will bring fresh energy, his 46.54 seconds last month a national under-20 record, while Phil Healy will also step into the mix.
What is certain is that the Dutch quartet which won Olympic gold in Paris last August will start as raging hot favourites, home superstar Femke Bol committing only to the relays in Apeldoorn to break up her winter training. Belgium, Great Britain, Spain and Czechia complete the line-up, although the better medal hope is likely to be with the women’s 4x400m on Sunday.
Several Irish athletes will be making their European Indoor debut, including Bori Akinola, the 23-year-old fresh from winning his first national senior 60m title last month, and Cathal Doyle, the 27-year-old from Dublin who can boast about winning a race at the Olympics. That came in Paris in the new repechage round of the 1,500m, where Doyle, after finishing ninth in his heat, usurped a field of mostly faster runners. He then ran a lifetime best of 3:33.15 in the semi-final, missing the Olympic final by less than a second.
By his own admission something of a late developer, Doyle has also improved his times every season he’s raced, including over the indoor mile in Lievin last month, where he ran 3:53.18 to finish third behind Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who smashed the world indoor record with his 3:45.14.
Ingebrigtsen is in Apeldoorn chasing a third successive 1,500m/3,000m double, having also won 3,000m gold in 2019 at age 18. Doyle is more concerned about making the final, Thursday’s heats sure to create fireworks.
[ Jakob Ingebrigtsen breaks world indoor mile record in FranceOpens in new window ]
“You can kind of guarantee now that once you’re in a final that he [Ingebrigtsen] is in, it’s going to be a strung-out race from the gun,” says Doyle. “But at the same time you can’t turn yourself into a time-trialler, because you need to be getting out of the heat, which may not be as strung out and quick from the gun. But it certainly doesn’t make it any easier – you know he’s going to run the legs off you in the final.”
Since Paris, Doyle has signed a professional deal with Nike, and the Clonliffe runner is now coached by Jon Bigg, whose training group is based in Brighton. “I think it’s more confirmation to myself that, okay, all the work I’ve done and the sacrifices I’ve made, it wasn’t all for nothing,” he says. “Other than that, nothing has actually changed, I’ve always taken the training and everything serious.
“But someone asked me after my first race does it feel better now that you’re wearing a Nike singlet? Because last year I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder, every race, running in my club vest. Mentally I still try to keep that attitude. Not that you get loads right now, it just keeps a chip on your shoulder, a bit more of a blue-collar mindset. I feel I run better when I have that kind of attitude.”
The Irish in Apeldoorn: Sarah Lavin (60m hurdles), Sharlene Mawdsley (400m, 4x400m relay, 4x400m mixed relay), Phil Healy (4x400m relay, 4x400m mixed relay), Rachel McCann (400m, 4x400m relay, 4x400m mixed relay), Cliodhna Manning (4x400m relay), Lauren Cadden (400m, 4x400m relay), Arlene Crossan (4x400m relay), Sarah Healy (3,000m), Jodie McCann (3,000m), Kate O’Connor (Pentathlon).
Bori Akinola (60m), Mark English (800m), Cian McPhillips (800m), Cathal Doyle (1500m), Andrew Coscoran (3,000m), James Gormley (3,000m), Conor Kelly (4x400m mixed relay), David Bosch (4x400m mixed relay), Marcus Lawler (4x400m mixed relay).
Thursday schedule (all times Irish): Cathal Doyle, Men’s 1500m Round One, 18:55; Sarah Lavin, Women’s 60m Hurdles Round One, 19:50; Mixed 4x400m Relay, Final, 20:50.
