Despite two near misses for Olympic podium spots in 2024, it was a record year for athletics in Ireland.
While the Olympics were the spectacle for athletics globally, Ireland announced themselves as a force to be reckoned with at the World Relays in May, and backed this up with their best team performance ever at a European Championship.
As Ireland's top athletics stars start to compete for the first time in 2025, what can we expect from the athletes that captured the nation in Paris?
First on the calendar is a choice of two indoor championships in March, as the 2020 World edition, cancelled due to covid, has been rescheduled for this year.
Nanjing in China, will finally get its moment to host, but so far details have been scant. The more accessible venue, of Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, will host the European Indoor Championships for four days from 6 March. It is likely that many European athletes will forgo the long-haul flight to China and stick with the event closer to home, which could make it more luractive.
Ireland's highest ranked athlete from 2024, Rhasidat Adeleke chose a short indoor season last year and looks set to repeat the pattern, confirmed by her recent comments that all focus will be on Tokyo.
The long 2024 calendar meant a later start to winter conditioning that could put some athletes behind in their preparation for the 'short track' season.
Expect to see Adeleke lining out for at least a few stretches of the legs in the indoor season, such are the obligations of sponsored athletes, with maybe less focus on the shorter distances as she is now fully focused on the longest sprint. The only and late outdoor championship of the year in Tokyo in September is her focus, where claiming a global medal would be the cherry on top of her hugely impressive early career.
The 22-year-old is in her prime and by her own admission has plenty to work on. The initial disappointment of not making the podium in Paris may have waned, but will surely still act as a motivator towards her chance of redemption.
Adeleke is the highest ranked, but Tipperary’s Sharlene Mawdsley must have the most appearances in the green vest in 2024, with 17.
Mawdsley played a part in all of Ireland’s 4x400m successes in 2024, and proved to be a reliable and steadfast member of the squad, with a highlight being holding off Dutch indoor world record holder Femke Bol to claim gold in the European Championships in the mixed relay event.
The women's 4x400-metre squad will be targeting the European Indoor Championships, where without Adeleke, they will aim to make a second European podium following an agonising fourth in Paris.
After an Olympic cycle, many athletes make changes to their training approaches and coaching set-ups, Mawdsley is no exception, and is among a small number of Irish athletes that have joined international groups for 2025.
The two-time European medallist has paired with British coach, Tony Lester, and will train alongside the Nielsen twins, Laviai and Lina, who both have Olympic bronze medals in the relay events.
With a drastic change in coaching and set-up, it's difficult to predict what Mawdsley's year in 2025 will look like, could a change to the hurdles be on the cards? The 400-metre flat specialist competed in the short hurdles as a teenager, but with the one-lap hurdles event seeing its strongest period in history could learning a new event at 26 be one challenge too many for mighty Mawdsley?
Another athlete contending with coaching changes post-Olympics is European 1500-metre Champion, Ciara Mageean.
Mageean's 2024 season could only be described as turbulent. From the highs of claiming gold at the European Championships, with a swift elbow down the home straight in Rome in June, to pulling out the night before her 1500m heat in Paris, the summer in 2024 was bumpy.
At the end of summer, the Portaferry native confirmed that another achillies surgery had been completed and stated her intentions to continue on to the Olympics in LA in 2028.
Before that, the 32-year-old will need to make a successful return to running post-surgery. Mageean will have some breathing room, as the World Championships in Tokyo are a few months later than normal. The European Champion will have to achieve the qualifying mark of 4:01.50 before the 24 August cut-off, her world ranking will likely plumet, as none of her early 2024 season races were within the qualifying window for Tokyo. She will also have plenty of other Irish competition to fend off, with Sarah Healy and Sophie O'Sullivan already qualified for 2025's main event.
The national record holder has made a move back to the island to train, and will be basing herself between Belfast and Dublin for the foreseeable. While several other Olympic athletes, such as Mawdsley, Mark English, Andrew Corcoran, Lauren Cadden and Brian Fay have made moves to the UK and further afield for their chosen coaching expertise, in contrast, the mature Mageean has made the move back.
The support of family and a familiar and supportive community cannot be underrated, especially during the challenges that Mageean will face in the next six months to get back on the track for what could be the most anticipated comeback of 2025.
Sarah Lavin could well be the only athlete from the Irish contingent that will contest both World and European Indoor Championships in March. It will be no mean feat, with just 13 days between the final of the 60-metre hurdles in Aperldoorn and the start of competition in Nanjing.
Lavin will have to contend with not only an event where the standard is improving year-on-year but also a seven-hour time difference and 15-hour travel time, minimum. This isn't something the Limerick native can't handle, a seasoned professional on the circuit, Lavin is capable of managing the tough travel schedule in hope of making her first major podium.
One athlete that had a notable break in 2024 was Clonliffe's Cathal Doyle. The Dubliner was the only Irish athlete to progress through the gruesome Olympic repechage, to get a run in the semi-final and despite it being his first senior championships, was unequivocally the best of the 1500-metre men in Paris.
Doyle had a rapid rise to the top of Irish 1500-metre running, the 27-year-old has taken nearly 4.5 seconds off his personal best since 2022, and is known for his racing tactical prowess and sheer determination. It is no secret that after taking big chunks off personal best times, there can be the annoyance of plateaus and stagnation in performance, but Doyle could trump this trend.
Given that the Olympics were his first major championship expect to see Doyle target getting a second and third Irish vest in 2025.
The gender balance in athletics in Ireland is skewed in the senior and under-age categories, but in opposite directions. Young male athletes are truly shining in their age-groups. Ireland scooped six international under-age medals on the track and historically, the field last summer, with Nick Griggs completing the 2024 medal tally with silver in the European Cross County Championships in December. Of those seven medals, all athletes were male, three were in throwing events and two in sprints, something unprecedented in Irish athletics.
Oisín Joyce was the standout junior athlete of the season, granting him a position on the list for RTÉ Young Sportsperson of the year in 2024. Javelin thrower Joyce placed third in the World Under-20 championships in Lima, Peru.
The teenager will turn 20 at the end of the month and will have the Under-23 Championships in his sights, which will be held in Bergen, Norway from 17 July. Ireland has never won a field medal at these championships and Mayo native Joyce will hope to once again add his name to the record books.
You can't talk about 2025 athletics without mentioning the new competition concept, Grand Slam Track League, that has been launched by four-time Olympic Champion Michael Johnson.
Johnson has yet to secure an Irish signing, with Adeleke choosing to forgo it, citing 'Coach Flo' as the decision maker. It is unlikely an Irish athlete will feature, but pending a successful inaugural year and continued lucrative prize money we may see an Irish representative in the four annual slams in the future.
There is good news for Irish athletics aficionados, 800-metre Olympian Louise Shanahan is one of the names behind the website TrackAthletes.ie which was launched late last week.
The site will provide up to date information on where, and how to watch Irish athletes compete as well as tracking progress towards major championships. Qualification for championships has become more complicated since the introduction of a point-based world ranking system, but Shanahan and her partner in the project, Elizabeth Egan, will make it easier to understand where Irish athletes are competing and where they are ranked.
While not necessarily one for the masses, those interested in the stats behind the sport will be logging on to keep track of Irish athletes in what will be a busy year of competition.
Watch the European Indoor Athletics Championships from 6-9 March on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
