Adeleke's final will be a very different race to what unfolded on Wednesday
FINAL BOUND: Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke after finishing second in the semi-final. Pic ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
Forty-nine seconds of hell await. But if Rhasidat Adeleke can get each of them right, she will be transported straight to heaven. The piercing pain of the 400m would swiftly subside, replaced by an elation that has few equals.
It’s been 24 years since an athlete won a track medal for Ireland at the Olympic Games and only three athletes – Bob Tisdall, Ronnie Delany and Sonia O’Sullivan – have ever managed it. That speaks to its absurd difficulty. That speaks to its rarity. But the fact Adeleke, at just 21, has a genuine shot at that tonight speaks to what a special talent she truly is.
She has already chalked a piece of history by being here: the first Irishwoman ever to make an Olympic sprint final. Even if she trails home eighth, that’s an achievement worth celebrating. And yet, she will want so, so much more.
She’s capable of it. The 49.07 she ran to win silver in the European final makes her second quickest on season’s best, but that’s a bit of a red herring. In truth, world champion Marileidy Paulino has yet to truly release the handbrake this year, the Dominican athlete clocking 49.21 to win her semi-final at ease. She will likely smash 49 seconds tonight, and probably go close to 48.
Then there is Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser, who popped up in the lane inside Adeleke in the semi-final and spooked her a little, throwing off her focus and dismantling the Dubliner’s race plan. Naser, who clocked a mind-boggling 48.14 to win the 2019 world title, was banned for two years in 2021 for missing three drugs tests, ruling her out of the Tokyo Olympics. She maintained it can “happen to anybody” and said she’d “never cheat”. Few believe her.
Either way, she’s back and looking ominously in-form, powering away from Adeleke to win the semi-final on Wednesday in 49.08, Adeleke tying up badly down the home straight and clocking just 49.95, a time she could usually do in her sleep. Adeleke ran 49.07 in Rome in June, 49.17 in Monaco in July. Those races were only a means to an end. To this.
The way Adeleke finished on Wednesday with what was – for her – a pedestrian 14.51-second last 100m was worrying. But she acknowledged she’d got it wrong, calling it a “very messy” race where she “panicked a little bit”, losing her form. That’s an easy fix. A more pressing issue is why she was in such a state of fatigue, with the Irish team bringing in medics to make sure she was OK. A representative later said there was no health issue, just that wretched acidosis which is an occupational hazard for all elite-level 400m runners. She’s had 48 hours to get back feeling good. Tonight we’ll get our answer.
The final will be a very different race to what unfolded on Wednesday. Having been drawn in lane eight in her semi-final, tonight Adeleke will see everyone from the outset, drawn in lane four with her chief rivals all outside her: Britain’s Amber Anning in five, Paulino in six, Kaczmarek in seven, Naser in eight.
The three medals will almost certainly come from those five.
It would require a perfectly judged effort, one where she rockets from the blocks, stays relaxed down the back straight, attacks on the turn and then holds, holds, holds her technique up the home straight. But if she’s back feeling good and does all that, she might just ascend into the most exclusive pantheon in Irish athletics.
Elsewhere, Mark English and Sarah Lavin, along with the Irish women’s 4x400m team, are all one race away from making an Olympic final today, with each of them needing to produce something special to make it happen. But it’s possible.
English will go to the line at 10.30am Irish time at the Stade de France for his 800m semi-final, a top-two finish the only sure way to know he’s made his first global final. However, there are also two time qualifier spots available across the three semi-finals, and English looks capable of taking a whopping chunk off his Irish record of 1:44.53.
He is drawn alongside the gold medal favourite, Djamel Sedjati of Algeria, who has shaped like the Olympic champion all summer. English has set personal bests over 400m, 600m and 800m and in his heat on Wednesday, he was foot-perfect, running another of the favourites, Gabriel Tual of France, right to the line. “I felt really good and that bodes really well for the semi-final,” he said. “The first lap was the strangest thing, as I felt so comfortable. I think we ran 50/51 and it felt really easy.”
Lavin will be on track at 11.13am for the second semi-final of the 100m hurdles, the Limerick athlete facing a huge task in getting a top-two spot given the presence of USA’s Alaysha Johnson, Switzerland’s Ditaji Kambundji and Nadine Visser of the Netherlands who have all run 12.40 or quicker. Lavin’s best is 12.62. She beat Kambundji in Wednesday’s heat, clocking 12.73. To reach the final, 12.5 at a minimum will be needed. “Ultimately I’m going to need the race of my life,” she said.
The women’s 4x400m team of Kelly McGrory, Phil Healy, Sophie Becker and Sharlene Mawdsley will be in action in the heats at 9.52am. They made the world final last year without Rhasidat Adeleke and with the Dubliner otherwise engaged today for the 400m final, they will now have to repeat the trick.
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