Rhasidat Adeleke gets Olympic year off to a solid start

SOLID START: Pictured is Allianz Ireland ambassador and Irish record holder, Rhasidat Adeleke. Pic Credit: Dan Sheridan

Rhasidat Adeleke got her Olympic year off to a solid start by taking part in a 4x400m relay in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday, the 21-year-old Dubliner clocking a 51.74-second split on the second leg.

Running on an unattached team with her training partners at the University of Texas, this was little more than a rust buster for Adeleke, though she was unsurprisingly the fastest on the squad, with former world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith clocking 53.57 on the opening leg and reigning NCAA 100m and 200m champion Julien Alfred running 52.47 on the third leg. The anchor runner, Lanae Tava-Thomas, failed to finish.

Adeleke has yet to decide whether to race at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March in what is her first indoor season running as a professional. She twice smashed the Irish indoor 400m record last year, and her indoor PB of 50.33 would have won her silver at the last edition of World Indoors in 2022.

Adeleke said last month that she could “potentially” be in Glasgow, adding she and her coach, Edrick Floreal, “talked about it a little bit, but it’s not for definite. I’m not sure if I’ll come to Europe during the indoor season as I’ll probably be in Europe a lot during the outdoor season, so I’m trying to keep the same environment."

Floreal said it would depend on how her form is progressing in the coming weeks. "If she has a chance to go to World Indoors (in March) and win a medal then yes, great," he said. "If it’s not looking good, if she gets sick, then we scrap indoors and move on. It's completely up to: does this preparation help our chances in Paris? All that matters is getting a medal in Paris.” 

Elsewhere, Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich smashed the women's 10km world record with 28:46 in Valencia on Sunday morning, carving a whopping 28 seconds off the previous mark, set by Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw two years ago. Ngetich passed halfway in a remarkable 14:13 - a 5km world record in a mixed race - but managed to maintain her pace well to become the first woman in history to break 29 minutes. Ireland's Efrem Gidey clocked 27:56 in the men's race, which was won by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo in 26:48.

Closer to home, Shane Healy clocked an M55 world record of 2:02.46 for 800m at the Irish Masters Indoor Championships in Athlone on Saturday, taking over three seconds off the previous mark.

The Dubliner, a 1996 Olympian over 1500m, smashed the M55 3000m world indoor record of 8:47.71 in Dublin last weekend, breaking a record that had stood for over 40 years.