Deja vu fourth for Adeleke, world record for Ingebrigtsen

Another 400m fourth place for Rhasidat Adeleke at the Diamond League meet in Poland

Sun, 25 Aug, 2024 - 16:28

Cathal Dennehy

The style of race might have been very different to the Olympic final, but for Rhasidat Adeleke the result was just the same. The Dubliner came home fourth over 400m at the Silesia Diamond League in Poland today, clocking 50.00 behind the same three women who beat her in Paris. Marileidy Paulino took victory in 48.66, Salwa Eid Naser was second in 49.23 and Natalia Kaczmarek third in 49.95.

Adeleke had attacked the race from the outset, blasting through the opening 100m in 11.80 seconds to lead the field at that point, having been fifth in 12.01 during the Olympic final. She slipped to second by 200m (23.27) and turned for home a close third behind Paulino and Naser, but just didn’t have the legs to go with that pair down the home straight and was caught by Kaczmarek close to the line.

“The goal was to do well and perform my best under the circumstances,” said Adeleke. “I just got here, I didn’t have any of my stuff so I was just happy to make it to the line and be healthy. Coming towards the end of the season I just want to give that extra bit.”

She has one more race this season: the Diamond League final in Brussels on 13 September. Her goal there? “Just to be able to make the progress I need to make,” she said. “The next couple of weeks I’ll be able to get back to training and get back to the shape I need to be in.”

Elsewhere in Silesia, Jakob Ingebrigtsen smashed one of the longest-standing track world records in the 3000m, clocking 7:17.55 to take more than three seconds off the mark of 7:20.67 set by Kenya’s Daniel Komen in 1996. It was a huge performance for the 23-year-old Norwegian, who lost his Olympic 1500m title in Paris earlier this month but won gold over 5000m.

Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi, the Olympic 10,000m silver medallist, produced the third best performance of all time in second with 7:21.28, while rising star Nick Griggs came home 12th in 7:39.52.

“I was hoping to challenge the world record here but based on my training, I can never predict exactly what kind of time I am capable of,” said Ingebrigtsen. “I would not have imagined I could run 7:17. At the beginning the pace felt really fast, but then I started to feel my way into the race and found a good rhythm. The conditions were difficult with the heat but it is the same for everyone. Now I want to challenge world records at all distances, but it is one step at a time.”

Mondo Duplantis continued taking the men’s pole vault into the stratosphere, the Swedish superstar soaring over another world record of 6.26m to add one centimetre to the mark he cleared to win his second Olympic title in Paris.

Sarah Healy produced an impressive run in the 1500m, the 23-year-old Dubliner producing the second quickest time of her career when coming home fifth in 3:59.65, a race won by Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji in 3:57.08. For Healy, her time was behind only the 3:57.46 she ran in Paris earlier this summer.

“I’m really proud of myself because I had a really tough Olympics, it was hard to get myself up to race again,” said Healy, who finished seventh in her 1500m heat in Paris and fourth in the repechage – on both occasions coming up just one spot shy of advancing to the semi-final. “I took a big knock at the Olympics, I was so nervous, it was tough mentally and I’m so proud of that (performance),” she said. “There’s a lot more there.”

Healy will race another 1500m at the Rome Diamond League next Friday in a field that includes world record holder and Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon, then she will close her season at the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York on 8 September. “With this one out of the way I can go for it in Rome, be a bit more aggressive,” she said. “I know the Olympics wasn’t anything physical, it was all mental, which is a huge lesson.”

Elsewhere, the Irish team returned a huge haul of 35 medals at the World Masters Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, with 12 of them gold. Anne Gilshinan was among the brightest stars, setting a world record to win the W60 1500m title in 4:59.45, becoming the first over-60 woman in history to break five minutes for the distance.

John MacDermott won triple gold in the M80 80m hurdles, 200m hurdles and 400m. Annette Kealy struck gold in the W55 10km road race, with Edel Maguire (W65 high jump), Michelle Kenny (W65 8km cross country), Annette Quaid (W45 400m) and Fiona Kehoe (W40 1500m) also winning individual golds. The W40 cross country team of Karla Doran, Rachel Murphy and Fiona Gettings also took victory, as did the Irish W55 half marathon team of Kealy, Irine Clements and Donna Evans and the m45 4x400m team of Ger Cremin, Keith Pollard, Jim Phelan and Carlton Haddock.

In Tampere, Finland, Luke McCann came home third in the Continental Tour Bronze meeting over 1500m, clocking 3:36.80, with Cathal Doyle 14th in 3:42.47.