Awesome Adeleke smashes Irish 400m record in Texas 

The 20-year-old Dubliner was on fire at the Big 12 Championships in Lubbock, Texas, on Saturday.

Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke. Picture: INPHO/Morgan Treacy

By now the only thing more remarkable than Rhasidat Adeleke’s class is the consistency with which she shows it, and at the Big 12 Championships in Lubbock, Texas, on Saturday, the 20-year-old Dubliner did it once again – making something very special seem almost routine, obliterating her Irish 400m record with 50.33.

That brought her home well clear of Kennedy Simon, her teammate at the University of Texas, who clocked 51.01 in second. Adeleke’s time was an NCAA record, going below the 50.34 run by Kendall Ellis in 2018, and was the second fastest time in the world this year, behind only the world record of 49.26 run by Femke Bol at the Dutch Championships last week. It moves Adeleke to 13th on the world indoor all-time lists, and makes her the hot favourite for 400m gold at next month’s NCAA Indoor Championships.

Perhaps more importantly, it moves her a step closer to the truly elite ranks of world sprinting. It is, after all, less than a year since Adeleke switched her chief focus to the 400m, but with less than 18 months to go until the Paris Olympics, she is entering the realm of becoming a genuine medal contender, particularly given the tight turns of indoor racing are not suited to her frame and lengthy stride and Adeleke will likely go much quicker outdoors in the summer.

After a year in which Adeleke set Irish records at 60m, 200m, 300m and 400m, finishing ninth at the World Championships and fifth in the European final – all at the age of just 19 – she has ascended to a new level in 2023, smashing the Irish 200m record with 22.52 in January before lowering the 400m record 50.45 at altitude in Albuquerque last month. She will bypass next week’s European Indoor Championships in Istanbul due to her commitments stateside, with the NCAA Indoor Championships in Albuquerque on March 10-11 next on the agenda, where she should prove tough to beat in the 400m.