BY KIERAN McCARTHY
PHIL Healy will have to brush up on her French after booking her ticket to the Paris Olympic Games.
The Ballineen Bullet is set to realise her ambition of becoming a two-time Olympian after she helped the Irish women’s 4x400m relay team qualify for this summer’s Olympics in Paris.
Healy played a key role in the star-studded Irish team that stormed to a sensational win in their heat at the World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas on Saturday. Smashing the national record by over one and a half seconds, this result qualified the Irish women’s 4x400m team for the Olympics.
'This is phenomenal by the team,' Healy beamed afterwards, the Bandon AC track star running the third leg for the Irish team that also included rising superstar Rhasidat Adeleke (Tallaght AC), Sharlene Mawdsley (Newport AC) and Sophie Becker (Raheny Shamrock AC). On paper this is the fastest Irish team and they showed it on the track with a stunning time of 3:24.38.
Healy is also a sub on the Irish mixed 4x400m relay team that broke the national record and also qualified for the Olympics on Saturday, and both teams advanced to the World Relay finals on Sunday.
With a short turnaround between finals, both Adeleke and Mawdsley lined out with the Irish mixed team that won a brilliant bronze medal, while Roisin Harrison (Emerald AC) and Lauren Cadden (Sligo AC) took their places alongside Healy and Becker in the women’s 4x400 line-up. Healy and Co finished seventh in the world final, in a time of 3:30.95.
‘Seventh place … the time is a bit slower than yesterday (Saturday) when we broke the national record and got our Olympic qualification – and that’s what we came here to do. We got experience here for the girls in a world final, and we’ll take that into Rome (European Athletics Championships) in a couple of weeks time and then Paris in the summer,’ said Healy, who competed in three events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and is now on target to compete at her second Olympics. As well as the relay, she hopes to qualify in the individual 200m, too.
