Rhasidat Adeleke can show she's capable of 'something special'

The Dubliner will run for a place in the 400m Olympic final. 

SEMI-FINALIST: Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke winning her 400m heat on Monday. Picture: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

Tonight there will be no hiding place, no shadow boxing, the Olympic 400m semi-finals certain to draw all the big medal contenders into finally showing their hand.

Three semi-finals that will illustrate in crisp quality how realistic a medal chance Rhasidat Adeleke truly has. The 21-year-old Dubliner will race the first of them, at 7.45pm Irish time, and only the top two secure automatic qualification to Friday’s final. Adeleke may not be ecstatic about her draw in lane eight, but given the potent quality in the other heats she will be relieved to have avoided her biggest three rivals in the race for gold: Marileidy Paulino of Dominican Republic, Nickisha Pryce of Jamaica and Natalia Kaczmarek of Poland.

The three semi-final winners, plus the fastest runner-up finisher, will be placed in the favourable lane draw for the final, spread from lanes five to eight, so none of the main contenders will want to take a chance on a runner-up finish tonight and going into the draw for less favourable lanes.

Adeleke has plenty of quality in the lanes inside, with Dutch star Lieke Klaver in six and 2019 world champion Salwa Eid Naser, who has returned from a ban for missing drugs tests, in lane seven. Adeleke is over half a second quicker than both this year, and while both are fast starters and will likely keep Adeleke company until 300m, the Dubliner should have too much for them down the home straight.

She demonstrated a different race approach in her heat to the European final, going out three tenths of a second quicker in the first half though, crucially, she still felt well within herself. “I feel like my first 200 was pretty calm,” she said. “I didn’t go too aggressive.” 

Adeleke clocked a swift 50.09 despite easing down through the last 50 metres and depending on how much of a threat she comes under from Naser tonight, she may or may not need to run all out. If she does, her first sub-49-second clocking could occur. Then, she could truly start thinking about a medal.

As she said on Monday: “I’m not happy to participate, I want to achieve my goals. My goal wasn’t just to come to the Olympics, my goal was to do something special. And that’s what my goal will remain.” 

A quartet of Irish athletes will be in action at the Stade de France this morning, with Sarah Lavin going in the 100m hurdles heats at 9.39am. The Limerick athlete will need a top three finish to automatically advance and it looks a tall order given there are three others in the race who’ve run 12.4 this year, Lavin’s season’s best being 12.66.

Mark English opens his campaign in the men’s 800m heats at 11.03am, the Donegal athlete looking for a top-three finish to avoid the repechage. He is seeded fifth on season’s bests.

Sophie O’Sullivan and Sarah Healy make a quick turnaround for the 1500m repechages at 11.45am, the pair both finishing seventh in their heats yesterday and coming up one spot shy of the semi-finals. A top-three finish will be needed to advance.

Healy was frustrated to miss the automatic path to the semi-finals having faded in the final 50 metres yesterday. “I didn’t feel very good and then I tied up at the end which has now happened to me twice so I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” she said. “It’s really hard. I came into this in such great shape and I should have been able to do that comfortably and everything just felt really hard. It’s confusing, to be honest.” 

O’Sullivan had little reason to look back with regret, having smashed her previous best to clock 4:00.23. “I didn’t think we were going that fast at all,” she said. “I was just focused on the six people and that’s where my focus was. Obviously if you run the best you’ve ever run it’s great. You can’t not be grateful for that.” In the 400m repechages, Sharlene Mawdsley simply didn’t have enough down the home straight to secure qualification, finishing third in 51.18. 

“I’d have had to run a PB to have qualified and I did that yesterday, which was annoying,” she said. “I think I ran everyone else’s race bar my own which is disappointing, but I’m not too disappointed. It’s the Olympic Games. I’m showing up when it counts.” 

Sophie Becker corrected the error she made in the heats by committing to the race on the crown of the final bend and it paid off as she finished second in 51.28, her second fastest time, but it wasn’t enough to advance. “Yesterday I lacked a bit of confidence at 250 and was scared to go with the girls but I did it today,” she said. “I can't be greedy as the perfectionist in me wants more, but I have to be happy with that.”