Reece Ademola coming along in leaps and bounds

LEAPS AND BOUNDS: Reece Ademola of Leevale AC, Cork, competes in the men's long jump during day two of the 123.ie National Senior Outdoor Championships at Morton Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Leevale needed a long-jumper. It didn’t matter that Reece Ademola hadn’t jumped into a pit of sand for two and a half years. They knocked on his door, and he’ll be forever grateful that they did.

It was August 2021. Leevale were headed for the National League Division 1 final in Tullamore. A slight hitch was that their men’s team was without a long-jumper.

The club’s coaching coordinator Derrick Neff picked up the phone and asked Ademola if he would be interested in competing. Ademola hadn’t competed since 2019. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever compete again.

Reece registers six feet and nine inches tall. You don’t get to that height by your late teens without bumping your head here and there on the way up.

The growth spurts grew problems, several of them. Shin splints. Lower back trouble. Throw a meniscus tear to his right knee into the mix and he was half crocked.

He sat before a number of physios and they all told him the same thing; the growing pains would stop once he had stopped growing.

“But anytime I tried to do anything vigorous, the pain would shoot back. I was on crutches for a while. My right knee flamed up another time,” he recalls of a difficult few years.

“The fear of going back to the sport and not being able to compete at the level I once competed at also threw me off going back.” 

And then, out of nowhere, came the invitation to step back onto the runway. To charge down 40 metres of track and leap into his forgotten sandpit.

Ademola accepted the invite, dusted down his amber single, and soared to heights which made a mockery of his time away.

On his third jump at Tullamore, the then 18-year-old registered 7.47. It was his first time breaking the seven-metre mark.

“Leevale needed me, they had no one else. When I jumped 7.47, I saw the reaction on everyone else's face, ‘this guy is gone for two and a half years, comes back, and this is what he produces’.

“Producing those marks (he cleared 2.05m in the high jump the same day) set the groove for me. I said to myself, ‘we are back in this, the back is okay, the knee is okay, I am done growing’.” 

All that has been growing ever since is his long jump personal best.

Ademola was again flying in Leevale amber at the end of last month. On this occasion, the stage and sandpit were slightly bigger than Tullamore.

His invite to the World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava arrived off the back of a 7.86 Irish U23 record at Aarhus the previous week. The Cork youngster opened with 7.93 and led reigning World champions Miltiádis Tentóglou until Round 3.

His two performances on the continent have shoved him into the quota places for the Paris Olympics. There he plans to remain.

“The level of competition in Denmark and Ostrava really lifted me to jump as well as I did. In Ostrava, I had the World champion bet for the first two rounds. To be out there with the best in the world and pushing them out of their comfort zone was pretty cool.

“If you want to have a chance of going to the Olympics, these gold, silver, and bronze level meets, and how you perform at them, it all matters.

“I'm still trying to figure out the points system, but I've been hearing good things from those that fully understand it, so I am just gonna stick to their word,” laughs the serenely cool Cork city youngster.

He’s equally laid back when asked if he can picture himself on the Paris runway.

“Is it achievable? I believe so. I am feeling a lot more confident than I was last year. I was a bit terrified of the board last year.” 

After a fifth-place finish at the 2022 World Juniors, Ademola bounded into 2023 with lofty - and justified - expectations. But instead of the anticipated improvement, he was first met with a steep learning curve.

At the European Games in Poland, he failed to register a mark after three successive fouls. A month later, he failed to break seven metres at the European U23s, and consequently failed to make a final he should have been contending in.

Taking off for each jump, he was stuck in his own head and couldn’t escape.

“Not registering a mark at the European Team championships bogged me down, and that led into European U23s. It took me a while to get out of it.

“It was nationals that I creeped out of it. Did a national U23 record there (7.96) and then did another out in Padova (7.97).

“I do think the long jump is more mental than physical. You've done the work in training, you've done the repetitions, but if your mind is at you, it doesn't work out.

“Getting things off the bat in Round 1 just eases you in for the rest of the competition, your head won't be at you. Get that first jump bang on and then I am chilling out for the rest.

“If I am ever in a hole, my family, my mam Diana in particular, and my excellent coach Liz Coomey will get me out of it. They are all key in what I do.” 

Mam is supporter No.1. She left Latvia for Cork as a 16-year-old and fell in love with the city. His dad is Nigerian and it is from him he inherited his incredibly tall frame.

“When I was out of the sport, I always knew I’d regret it if I didn’t go back. Mam was the one that pushed me out of the house and back into sport.” 

The family celebrated Reece’s 21st birthday earlier this month. Was there any long-jump related wish when blowing out his 21 candles?

“Keep progressing the way I am right now. I've never had as good a start to the indoor season, so just trying to work off that. There's loads of improvements I am seeing from being on the circuit. I am taking all that on board to try and bring to coming meets.

“That's my wish: to be better.” Should he become only the second Irishman to break eight metres, then it’ll be a birthday wish come true.