O'Sullivan: Adeleke must keep blocking out abuse and focus on glory
ADELEKE ADVICE: Allianz ambassador and Irish Olympic Silver medallist, Sonia O’Sullivan, as Allianz launch their new “Stop The Drop” research. The Stop The Drop campaign sheds critical light on the decline in sports participation among Irish children, particularly during the pivotal transition from primary to secondary school. Pic Credit: Dan Sheridan, Inpho.
Few Irish athletes lived under a microscope as searching as Sonia O’Sullivan.
A runner of rare class, her every appearance at major championships was scrutinised to the nth degree. The hopes of a nation invariably rested on her shoulders.
The Cobh woman experienced the full gamut of emotions, from the kit shambles that framed her Olympic experience in Atlanta in 1996 to the silver medal she won in Sydney four years later, and so much in between.
Yet, O’Sullivan never had to contend with the sewers and the pondlife that account for social media, that unpoliced Wild West of bile and cowardice that allows ignorance and intolerance to ferment and poison.
Rhasidat Adeleke was the target of this vile scourge earlier this year, her coach Edrick Floréal revealing that it had manifested online after the Tallaght woman’s superb showing at the World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas.
The response since has, at least, been heartwarming with a wave of support declared for the 21-year old on some of those same social media channels and with the Taoiseach Simon Harris among those to stand against the torrent of hate.
“It is definitely hard for athletes to escape things and to block things out because it can come up on your phone when you least expect it,” said O’Sullivan.
“For all the positive messages and things you see online, if there's just one negative thing it can hurt you more than anything, from lots of different aspects.
“When we're in RTÉ [as pundits] it's often the case that people will make comments and I always say if you go looking for it, well of course you're going to find it, so I never go looking for it. If I see something or someone tells me something, then I just go out of my way not to look for it. I don't want to know.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) estimates that there will be half-a-billion social media ‘engagements’ during the Paris Olympics and that it would take something in the region of 16 years to monitor those manually on a case-by-case basis.
The intention is to shortcut that with AI (artificial intelligence) which will block social media abuse and by doing so help to insulate the 15,000 athletes and officials involved during the course of the events in the French capital.
AI tools were utilised with some success in this way at last year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup and at the French Open tennis in Roland Garros, but O’Sullivan feels that athletes like Adeleke can help themselves too by reducing the exposure at their own end.
“I’m sure she has found ways to deal with it that has allowed her to come to the European Championships to line up and win a medal and be part of an Irish team that won medals in the relay. And, you know, you have to be able to compartmentalise all these things and you deal with them when you need to deal with them.
“But sometimes you have to put them aside and try and block them out and focus on what you’re focusing on. And I’m sure that is what she’s doing, what the people around her are helping her to do.
"The best thing we can do is not to ask her questions about it as you’re just reliving something that is not enjoyable for her.”
Adeleke will go to Paris as Ireland’s main medal hope in track and field. That brings its own type of pressure but, like Ciara Mageean who is another podium prospect in the 1,500m, she will be insulated from most of the hype by being based outside of Ireland.
O’Sullivan will live the hype and the expectation of the Games from the RTÉ studios where she will again be offering her expert views on the athletics and from Paris herself where she will support her daughter Sophie who has qualified for the 1,500m.
Ireland’s ambitions will not be confined to the individual events at the Stade de France though with the women’s and the mixed 4 x 400m relay teams both having claimed medals at the recent European Championships in Rome.
Their schedule in Paris is more complicated with Adeleke and Sharlene Mawdsley, crucial members of both squads, due to compete in the individual 400m shortly just two days after the mixed relay final is due to be run.
Adeleke suggested that her relay exertions in Rome may well have caught up with her down the home straight of the 400m even while clocking a national record of 49.07 when coming in behind Natalia Kaczmarek of Poland.
“It depends if you truly believe you're going to get a medal in the individual 400m are you going to use up some energy and put yourself at risk of not being at your very, very best because you've taken something away by competing in a mixed relay a couple of days before.”
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