Israel Olatunde happy to spearhead Irish sprint revolution

It took Israel Olatunde 10.19 seconds to turn heads at the Olympiastadion yesterday morning and Ireland’s 100m hopeful needed even less again to sum up the significance of the run

THROUGH: Israel Olatunde of Ireland celebrates after winning his Men's 100m heat during day 5 of the European Championships 2022 at the Olympiastadion in Munich, Germany. Pic: Ben McShane/Sportsfile

It took Israel Olatunde 10.19 seconds to turn heads at the Olympiastadion yesterday morning and Ireland’s 100m hopeful needed even less again to sum up the significance of a run that confirmed all the positive vibes about his potential prior to these European Championships.

“It was kind of a blur,” he explained after the third of the day’s heats, “but when I crossed the line I looked over, saw 10.1 and was like, ‘yep, that’s good’. That’s where it matters – to produce your best at championships. I’m happy to come out with the win, but now it’s all about the semi-finals.” 

Good doesn’t nearly cut it.

This was exceptional, almost unprecedented in Irish athletics. A notable time in all manner of ways. Cutting 0.05 off his PB, and from lane eight, was just the start of it. It is a new national U23 record, and a time that sits just 0.01 off the mark Paul Hession set in Finland in 2007, and Olatunde had nothing like the same 1.9m per second wind in his favour.

His race was run in almost dead calm conditions and it didn’t just win him his heat and propel him into this evening’s semi-finals, it was the fastest of the 12 who participated in yesterday’s prelims. A top-two finish is needed to qualify automatically for the final now, the difficulty multiplying with the addition of the top 12 handed byes first time around.

You couldn’t doubt his readiness for it.

Yesterday’s performance was of a piece with his 60m indoors run of 6.62 back in February, which also leaves him the bare minimum off another Hession national record. A 6.66 at the World Indoors in Belgrade left him just shy of a semi-final at his first major gig and an all-round consistency on the boards gave way to a gradual shaving of his numbers outdoors.

Olatunde started the season with a PB of 10.41 but he has now brought that down five times through runs in Belfast, Austria, at the Morton Games, the national U23s in Tullamore and now Germany. Not included in that list is an ‘illegal’ 10.19 run with a 2.4m per second wind at his back in Switzerland in June.

It’s the kind of consistency and graph that every athlete dreams about but for some it’s akin to bottling lightning. Olatunde is still only 20 and he has now managed to take 0.22 seconds off his personal best in successive seasons – so far - so there was an obvious question asked of him when he spoke prior to Munich: how?

“After Covid everyone was in a weird place with their training but I got back to a bit of normality with my training this year and that helped me a lot, just being patient and listening to my coach. I’ve got really great training partners as well and they really push me along so it’s a combination of all those things along the way and everyone pushing me to be the best I can be.” 

There’s more to it than that, of course.

Olatunde makes a point of studying the world’s best sprinters and he has worked on his patience in terms of his race plan, and on trying to relax over the course of the second 50m when the obvious tendency is for the brain and body to tense. And this trust has extended beyond the track.

That 10.24 in Tullamore late last month brought to 38 the number of times he had donned the spikes at a competitive meet in 2022, five of them coming in the 4x100m relay, a further 15 recorded under a roof and the other 18 spanning 100s outdoors from the first in early April through to the back end of July.

So Munich yesterday was his first stretch in three weeks, having taken a step back to work with coach Daniel Kilgallon and with the intention of peaking for these Europeans. All going well he will run twice again in the 100m before turning his attention to the relay where the Irish men will be looking to bag a third straight major final appearance.

So much to savour.

“All the sprinters in Ireland have been running very fast and I am just excited to be the spearhead, I guess, with the progression of Irish male sprinters,” said Olatunde who has still lost just one outdoor race this season, when coming in behind Great Britain’s Andrew Robertson at the Morton Games.

“I’m a competitor at heart.”