Sprint star Israel Olatunde takes nothing for granted ahead of National Indoor Championships

'I’m running down a dream and just going where it leads,' Dundalk native says

Tue, 22 Feb, 2022 - 18:26

Cathal Dennehy

Israel Olatunde was just four when Paul Hession exploded from the blocks in Birmingham, rocketed down the track and covered 60 metres in just 6.61 seconds.

In the 15 years since those European Indoor Championships, no Irish sprinter has come close to that Irish record, at least until Olatunde. In Athlone last month, the 19-year-old clocked 6.64, and has since gone under 6.70 on four occasions.

Consistency like that is typically a precursor to something big, and it could emerge at this weekend’s National Indoor Championships in Abbotstown, where Olatunde is favourite for gold in the men’s 60m. But the Dundalk native has been around this scene long enough to know that the tiniest error could be fatal to his chances.

“If you look at the season, I am the favourite,” he admits. “But if I make any mistake there’s going to be dozens of guys lined up ready to take advantage.”

Olatunde knows all about the calibre of his rivals as he’s long been a student of the sport. He studies the world’s best sprinters, how they emerge from the blocks, their arm and foot positioning, their shin angles — the complicated formula that generates the most efficient forward propulsion.

In recent weeks he’s been studying Noah Lyles, the world 200m champion who opened his season with a 6.62 60m last month. Lyles has since hacked that down to 6.55, that latter race in Birmingham being one Olatunde has pored over time and again.

“Seeing the way he comes up in the 60 and has adapted his running form is inspiring for me to watch,” he says. “That’s something I’m trying to emulate.”

Olatunde was always fast, but wouldn’t have been most people’s idea of the next great Irish male sprinter, which is what his 2021 season began to indicate. He took up athletics in his first year at St Mary’s Dundalk, but despite knocking on the door several times he never won an Irish schools’ title. Gerry McArdle steered his career in his youth and Daniel Kilgallon took over once Olatunde enrolled at UCD in 2019.

That summer, Olatunde had broken the Irish U18 100m record, clocking 10.63, and last summer he lowered his best to 10.41, also winning the Irish senior 100m title at the age of just 19. Now in his third year of a computer science degree at UCD, Olatunde commutes back and forth from Dundalk during the week and zig-zags around Dublin to train with Kilgallon’s group.

It was there that he became good friends with Rhasidat Adeleke, the reigning European U20 champion at 100m and 200m who, like Olatunde, was born and raised in Ireland to parents who emigrated from Nigeria. Since moving to the University of Texas last year, Adeleke has taken her vast talent to an even higher plane, setting Irish indoor records at 60m, 200m and 300m in recent weeks.

“Even forgetting about athletics, it’s great to just see your friend doing well and really chasing the dream,” says Olatunde. “I’m really happy for her and I know she’s going to keep going throughout the season and break more records.”

In school, Olatunde only ever planned to pursue a home base for college, but his performances last year generated interest from US recruiters, and he’s still weighing up a move stateside.

The qualifying standard for the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade next month is 6.63, and Olatunde has the slimmest margin to find to achieve that. But he won’t be thinking about the clock on Sunday. “If I go for the win, everything else will fall in place,” he says.

Outdoors, he’s hoping to qualify for the European Championships in Munich, which would require him to break Hession’s Irish record of 10.18 and hit the automatic A-standard of 10.16, or else achieve the B-standard of 10.30 and earn a sufficiently high world ranking. It’s so far been a bullet start to the year. Now it’s about carrying this momentum through.

“I’m running down a dream and just going where it leads,” he says. “It’s led me to this point, and the next step is that national title. That would be the cherry on top.”