Athletics Ireland's director of high performance Paul McNamara has revealed that Ireland's World Championships showing in Tokyo exceeded expectations and said the future looks bright for Irish athletics.
Twenty-eight athletes represented Team Ireland with the high point coming on Saturday when Kate O’Connor became the first Irish woman to medal at a major championships in a multi-discipline sport as she claimed a brilliant silver in the heptathlon.
There was also an excellent showing from Cian McPhillips, who finished fourth in the men’s 800m, while other athletes like Darragh McElhinney (men’s 5000m), Fionnuala McCormack (women’s marathon) and Sarah Healy (women’s 1500m) also caught the eye.
"Incredibly positive," McNamara told RTÉ Sport’s David Gillick of their performances in Tokyo.
"It's a global championships, first year of the new cycle, we’ve made a lot of progress over the last number of years and the last number of cycles,"
"When we reflect on the benchmarks we’ve set ourselves against, we’ve exceeded what we’ve done in the Paris cycle, the Tokyo (Olympic) cycle.
"If you look at the long-term view, in the build-up to Rio and the build-up to Tokyo, we had approximately four or five athletes making semi-final positions at global championships.
"Across the last three global championships in the last cycle in the build-up to Paris, we had an average of 10 athletes make semi-finals.
"Right here right now, we have the equivalent of approximately 15 athletes who’ve hit semi-finals so we’ve exceeded all expectations, we’ve blown it out of the water.
"We kind of anticipated that we would have the depth here, we thought we’d maybe be lacking at the top end, but here we are."
For McNamara, an improved athlete pathway in Irish athletics has been key to the growing success.
"In terms of medal counts over the years, that pathway has consistently got bigger and bigger.
"Arguably, a criticism back in the day was that some of these guys aren’t making it through to senior level but they are coming through.
"European Under-23s is probably the last big launching pad for an emerging athlete in senior competition – we had five medallists at the European U23s this year, we never had any more than two in any iteration of that championship previously.
"You look around at our top performers here and in Nanjing (World Athletics Indoor Championships) and in Apeldoorn (European Indoor Championships), they have all medalled at 23s or 20s or 18s in the past.
"Conor Kelly, Nicola Tuthill, Nick Griggs, he is an emerging talent that's going to make a major mark at senior level.
"Those guys are going and medalling, they’re coming through and making a mark and they’re making a mark quickly."
McNamara also denied that Rhasidat Adeleke’s decision to skip the Worlds due to injury had cast a shadow on a travelling party shorn its star name.
"Right here right now, we have the equivalent of approximately 15 athletes who've hit semi-finals so we’ve exceeded all expectations, we’ve blown it out of the water."
"No, not at all," he said.
"I know it was a talking point in some quarters but I think from the perspective of people in our sport, the athletes, coaches, support staff that put their shoulder to the wheel to emphasise all things positive in our sport, it’s very disappointing that Rhasidat wasn’t here, but every nation is missing athletes.
"At every championship you’re missing athletes. In our sport, you never have 100% of your athlete cohort so ultimately the decision made was a sensible, smart decision made by Rhasidat and her support team, in consultation with us, and communicated to us in a timely fashion.
"It is what it is and we move on with the business end of the sport. We've 28 athletes here, Rhasidat will be back, she will be better and it is up to us to support her when she's down. She’s an immense talent."
Watch coverage of Sunday's action from Tokyo on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player
