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Malachy Clerkin: Ciara Mageean somewhere between a proud smile and a quiet tear

Reports and previews from the World Athletics Championships, news on Dan Sheehan from the Ireland rugby camp, all the latest on Jim McGuinness

Ireland’s Ciara Mageean runs a national record and finishes fourth in the final of the women’s 1,500m in Budapest. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho

Malachy Clerkin's face
Malachy Clerkin
Wed Aug 23 2023 - 10:27

Good morning. Or is it? Certainly for Ciara Mageean, it will be hard to know quite how to feel. Mostly, she must be gutted to have come fourth in last night’s 1,500m final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. But as the days and weeks wear on, she must also take huge pride in the fact that she left every last drop of herself out on the track and it was so very nearly enough to take a medal on a world stage. Ian O’Riordan’s report from the stadium notes that her expression afterwards was, “somewhere between a proud smile and a quiet tear”.

For those of us watching on TV, it was an emotional experience. The TV View column finds that Virgin Media’s coverage has taken the Ryanair approach “buying the rights to the world feed and adding strictly no frills”. And oddly enough, it works. Even if it wasn’t enough to get Mageean across the line.

The Portaferry athlete was one of two medal hopes Ireland had coming into the championships. The other goes tonight when Rhasidat Adeleke runs in the final of the 400m. Ian’s preview points out that she’s the youngest athlete in the final, that she’s ranked 10th in the world and that Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic is the clear favourite. Still, Adeleke looks special and we cross our fingers and toes that this is the first properly big night of her career.

Mark English squeezed into the semi-finals of the 800m last night, he’ll run again on Thursday. Sadly, Louise Shanahan missed out this morning in the women’s 800m heats.

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Elsewhere, the news from the Ireland camp in France is that it looks increasingly likely Andy Farrell will bring Dan Sheehan to the World Cup, despite it looking likely the Leinster hooker will miss the first two games of the tournament. Gerry Thornley is over there for us and spoke to Mike Catt yesterday, whose answer when asked would Ireland take the risk was, “Definitely. Why not?”

The other big rugby story revolves (again) around the saga of Owen Farrell. Gerard Meagher reports that the England outhalf will now miss the opening two games of England’s World Cup after the decision to rescind his red card was itself overturned on appeal yesterday. Billy Vunipola has also got a ban for his tackle on Andrew Porter. Oddly enough, Farrell’s ban was backdated to include last Saturday’s game against Ireland, which he was perfectly entitled to play in. Hard to know what makes sense any more with this stuff.

The big GAA news of the day concerns Jim McGuinness’s appointment to the Donegal job after nine seasons away from the game. Seán Moran’s column delves into the increasingly complicated demands any intercounty job entails these days, while there’s also a piece from your truly on how, at a stroke, McGuinness’s appointment ends the era of Donegal being seen as a soft touch.

Telly Watch: Only one place to be tonight – Virgin Media Two at 8.35pm as Rhasidat Adeleke tries to win her first senior medal in the final of the 400m. Sarah Lavin runs in the semi-finals of the 100m hurdles at 7.45pm. There’s early round action in the Champions League too with Molde v Galatasaray on TNT1 at 7.45pm.

P.S. We had some technical difficulties with sending the newsletter in the last few days, which is why we missed a couple of editions. Things are back on track now, so thanks for bearing with us.