The Irish women’s 4x400m relay team finished a heart-breaking fourth in the Olympic final on Friday night in Paris, despite running a sensational new national record.
The magnificent foursome had already made history when they stepped on the track by being the first-ever Irish female relay team to contest an Olympic final, before confirming their world-class status with their sensational performance.
Knocking just shy of three seconds off their national record set in June when they won silver at the Europeans, the Irish quartet all ran the race of their lives and were agonisingly just 0.18 behind the bronze medallists Great Britain on the line.
The race was won by the USA in an incredible new continental record of 3:15.27, with individual gold medallist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone running a phenomenal 47:71 second leg. Netherlands took sliver in a new national record of 3:19.50, just 0.22 seconds ahead of Great Britain in bronze; who also clocked a national record to be barely a metre ahead of Ireland at the finish.
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