Tipperary’s Sharlene Mawdsley is representing Ireland this morning at the European Indoor Athletics Championships.
The Newport Athletic Club member is competing in the women’s four-hundred metre event in Poland, where she’ll be on the starting blocks at 20-past-10 Irish time.
Mawdsley began her athletics career under the tutelage of Father Bobby Fletcher, a long-standing coach at Newport AC.
Speaking to Tipp FM, Father Fletcher said he’s very proud to see Sharlene competing at such a high level.
“We’re hugely proud. She’s with me since she was about 10 or 11 until she was around 17 or 18 and I always found her an absolute pleasure to train.”
“She was very determined and very eager and what you want in an athlete she has great guts and great belief in herself.”
“It’s only once in a lifetime you get talent at that level.”
