Rhasidat Adeleke among three Irish in NCAA finals this weekend

NCAA: Rhasidat Adeleke coasted into the women’s 400m final, clocking 49.86 to win her heat with ease, the second quickest time of her career. Adeleke’s final takes place on Saturday night. File pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

It’s 17 years since Ireland had an individual track champion at the NCAA Division One Championships, an achievement that always signals medal-winning ability at international level. That was the case for Ireland’s last winner, Mary Cullen, the Sligo woman winning the NCAA 5000m title for Providence College in 2006 before going on to win bronze for Ireland at the European Indoors in 2009. It was also the case for Ireland’s last male champion, Alistair Cragg, who won a European Indoor title in 2005 a year after winning the NCAA 10,000m for the University of Arkansas.

But this weekend in Austin, Texas, Ireland has three strong challengers to emulate the feats of Cullen and Cragg. Two of them were in action on Thursday night, with Rhasidat Adeleke coasting into the women’s 400m final, clocking 49.86 to win her heat with ease, the second quickest time of her career. Adeleke’s final takes place on Saturday night at 9.02pm in Texas (3.02am Irish time), but the 20-year-old Dubliner will need the race of her life to claim gold.

That’s due to the presence of Britton Wilson, the standout athlete in the NCAA this year – across all events – who set a North American indoor record to beat Adeleke at the NCAA indoors in March, and who clocked a blazing 49.36 to win her 400m semi-final on Thursday night. Wilson is attempting something astonishing at this year’s championships, trying to win the 400m title before racing the 400m hurdles final just 25 minutes later. She looks almost impossible to stop in both events.

However, Adeleke will undoubtedly put it up to her, having recently smashed the Irish record with 49.54 at the NCAA regionals. She opened her championships by helping the University of Texas to a collegiate record of 41.55 Thursday night in the 4x100m heats, but there was disappointment for Texas in the 4x400m heats as lead-off runner Kennedy Simon veered out of her lane approaching the first hand-off and impeded the University of Tennessee, which saw them disqualified from an event where they were overwhelming favourites for gold. It will inevitably harm their chances of the overall team title.

Adeleke, though, will put that out of her head as she settles into the blocks tomorrow night. She was in buoyant form following Texas’s 4x100m relay record, saying “it’s always good to get the momentum going.” 

Momentum is something Sophie O’Sullivan will also carry into the women’s 1500m final. The 21-year-old looked highly impressive when outkicking her rivals to win Thursday night’s 1500m semi-final in 4:09.58. It’s 32 years since her mother – Sonia O’Sullivan – won the second of two outdoor NCAA titles. Sophie was a silver medallist at the European U18 Championships over 800m in 2018 but endured a rocky couple of years at the University of Washington, but she now seems to be flourishing in the programme and, whether it’s nature or nurture that’s responsible for her vicious finishing speed, it could prove a vital asset in Saturday’s final.

Her teammate at Washington, Brian Fay, will also be a strong contender in Friday night’s men’s 5000m final. The 24-year-old Dubliner was impressive at the recent NCAA regionals in Sacramento and while he’s occasionally left himself with too much to do in the final lap of major races, if he’s in contention and in the right position at the bell in Friday night’s final – which goes off at 3.55am Irish time – then he could well become the first Irishman in 19 years to win an individual NCAA title.