Irish athletes' near-misses bode well for Olympic Games

Without it being a case of celebrating fourth place finishes, it's a truism that global medals have proved particularly hard to come by for Irish athletes while narrow podium misses have ended up being portents for better things to come.

Ireland has won just six medals in 40 years of World Championships outdoors and a mere three at an Olympic Games since Ronnie Delany’s celebrated gold in the 1500m in Melbourne 67 years ago.

It’s a well-worn and frankly battered cliche that fourth is the loneliest place in sport, but that kind of language can look like lazy analysis when the performance is scrutinised with any degree of detail.

Applying a modicum of such analysis to what Ciara Mageean and Rhasidat Adeleke achieved last week at the World Championships in Budapest in occupying that spot in their respective disciplines will reveal that they were, in very different ways, important stepping-stone performances.

Both briefly occupied medal positions in the latter stages of their races, which should have filled them with a sense that a place on the podium was a real possibility.

That mindset of belonging at the top table can only stand to them when, all going well in the interim, each step on the start line for their heats at the Olympics next summer.

Both were also a clear enough distance off the bronze medal not to have to trawl over too many 'what ifs’ in the aftermath of their campaigns.

They can move on and take the best bits of the week and target the areas of improvement that they will likely need to address to "finish one place better" as Adeleke commented after her final.

In addition, in Budapest each finished behind athletes whose form through the season (in Mageean’s case), or the preliminary rounds (in Adeleke’s case) was by