Ademola breaks Irish U-23 indoor long jump record

The MTU student soared out to 7.93m in the opening round of the long jump.

CZECH OUT: Reece Ademola of Leevale AC. Picture: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile

For Reece Ademola and Sarah Lavin, 7.93 proved the magic number at the World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on Tuesday evening, with Ademola breaking the Irish U-23 indoor long jump record and Lavin continuing her fine start to the season in the 60m hurdles.

Ademola, a student at Munster Technological University, soared out to 7.93m in the opening round of the long jump, improving the Irish U-23 indoor record of 7.86m he jumped in Denmark last week. It was just shy of his Irish U-23 outdoor record of 7.97m and puts the Leevale athlete third on the Irish all-time indoor list behind Ciarán McDonagh (8.00m) and Adam McMullen (7.99m). It placed him third on the night, with Greece’s Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou taking victory with 8.09m, and it earned the 20-year-old Corkman valuable ranking points on his quest for Olympic qualification.

Lavin turned in another strong evening’s work in the 60m hurdles, the Limerick athlete clocking 7.95 to finish second in her heat and 7.93 to come home third in the final behind Poland’s Pia Skrzyszowska (7.82) and Nadine Visser (7.93). Lavin opened her season last weekend in Astana, Kazakhstan, clocking a personal best of 7.91.

Elsewhere, Rhasidat Adeleke will face a stern test at the Millrose Games in New York on Sunday, February 11, where the Dubliner takes on Talitha Diggs, the American who preceded her as NCAA 400m champion. They will square off over 300m at the prestigious meeting at The Armory in Manhattan, with Jamaica’s Candice McLeod and Leah Anderson also in the line-up. Adeleke broke both the 60m and 200m Irish records on her individual season debut in Albuquerque earlier this month, and the national 300m record of 36.87 – which she ran two years ago – looks on borrowed time. She has yet to decide if she will compete at the World Indoors in March.

Andrew Coscoran will also be in action at the Millrose Games in the Wanamaker mile, the 27-year-old in fine form after his Irish indoor 5000m record of 13:12.56 in Boston last weekend. First up though is the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on Sunday, where he’ll join his Dublin Track Club training partner Brian Fay in the 3000m.