Exciting Irish team can deliver medals at World Championships

Saturday marks the start of the World Championships [which take place from 19-27 August] and not only is Ireland sending its largest team to compete, it's arguably the most in-form squad we have ever assembled.

In the past, the World Championships has sometimes felt like the forgotten child of athletics, a little lost among other sporting events before springing into action. That certainly changed last year, in part due to a different looking sporting calendar.

The new GAA schedule meant there was no inter-county action during the European Championships in Munich last August. In truth, there wasn’t a lot of sport on at the same time competing against athletics.

It seemed like interest in athletics soared, with people stopping me when I came back from Germany to chat about our athletes and the event in general. Hopefully we can see something similar in Budapest.

There is excitement when you look throughout our team, with our medal hopes likely to rest on the shoulders of Ciara Mageean (1500m) and Rhasidat Adeleke (400m).

Ciara is in the form of her life, with PBs in 800m and the mile in 2023 already. She has been in elite races where world records have been broken and is up there with the best athletes in her event. Now it is about bringing it into the championships, which in a middle-distance event is a little different.

There are rounds to get through and unlike the Diamond League you don't have pacers setting the tempo and stringing out the field. At championships it requires more tactics, running with awareness of what’s happening around you and making sure you are in the right place to progress.

Hopefully she will be up there mixing it with the best.

Where do you start with Rhasidat?

At the age of 20, the times she is putting