There could only be one star, and Rhasidat Adeleke wowed an adoring home crowd on the second day of the National Championships yesterday, smashing the Irish 100m record on a weekend that showed the optimism in Irish athletics is in no danger of diminishing.
Adeleke’s brilliant run beat Sarah Lavin to first place, and in the process obliterated the national record Lavin set last year. Her 11.26 seconds was smashed by Adeleke, who took gold in 11.13.
It confirmed her status as the darling not only of Irish running but of sport in this country.
If there was surprise that the Texas-based sprinter traveled home for the Santry meet, her comments afterward showed just what the National Championships mean to her.
"I feel really good, oh my God, the crowd is amazing,’ the 21-year-old told RTÉ. "Just coming out and seeing so many people out here for an athletics competition, I absolutely love it and it definitely riled me on to go on and break the record.
"‘I feel like I was like at the Europeans or Worlds, literally,’ she gasped. ‘There are so many people here, so many people turned out for me and it really helped me appreciate what I’ve done, and just having some people who are supporting me, it means the world."
While some of the heroes of the European Championships in Rome gave this weekend a miss, given the Olympics are only a month away, Adeleke fitted the event into her schedule.
And her explanation made clear an emotional tie to the biggest day in Irish athletics.
This was notable given Sonia O’Sullivan’s suggestion that athletes who are funded nationally should be required to compete in their national championships. She had spoken in the context of Ciara Mageean not competing in Santry.
"I love competing in Morton Stadium at the Nationals," Adeleke said. "It’s very important to me to come back home and make sure I put on a performance for everyone who has been supporting me throughout the season.
"I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I haven’t been doing that much speed work, I’ve been trying to focus on the 400m. But to be able to come here and get the national record, 11.13, I’m really happy with that."
It means that Adeleke now holds the national record at 60m, 100m, 200m, and 400m, indoors and outdoors, with one commentator yesterday estimating she has broken the national mark over 50 times between junior and senior ranks.
Her storming run yesterday was helped by a warm, calm day, unrecognizable from Saturday when downpours complicated performances. Adeleke will now await the feedback of her coach, Edrick Floreal, as they fine-tune their taper towards Paris.
"I’m going to have to see what Flo says," said Adeleke, "because sometimes I think 'OK, that was great'. And then he’s like, 'No, you did this wrong, you did that wrong'. But I think he’ll be happy with that considering it’s not the hottest of days, but it’s still nice out today. So I think he’ll be happy."
Adeleke Rhasidat at the 2024 European Championships. (Getty Images)
The fans certainly were, with Adeleke generous with her time and acknowledging the support, which got so enthusiastic that she required gardaí to clear a path for her.
One of her teammates in the 4x400m relay team had a more mixed day. Tom Barr won his 12th Irish title in the 400m hurdles, but in a time that left him disappointed, and unsure whether he had done enough to qualify for that event in Paris.
He will be there as part of the relay team, but his ambitions in the 400m hurdles looked slim before last night’s deadline passed. This was the final weekend for Olympic qualification, and failing to make it with a qualifying time left athletes hoping to scrape in on rankings.
They were not finalized until last night’s deadline.
Barr won in 50.61 seconds; the time needed to secure Olympic qualification was 48.70 seconds.
"If I was coming out and it was just a national title at stake, I’d be very happy walking away,’ he told reporters afterward, ‘but the race went about as badly as any race has gone all year and it was crunch time today. I took the first hurdle on the wrong leg and it really threw me off, and I didn’t come home as strong as I did yesterday.
"To be honest I completely messed up this weekend. I’ll probably fall outside the rankings but that’s the game. The margins are so fine. I’ve a feeling I’m going to be the nearly man."
The men’s 400m was won by Jack Raftery, pipping the fancied Chris O’Donnell and preventing the Sligo athlete from adding to his haul of national titles. But both are now assured of a place as part of the mixed-relay team in Paris.
Sophie O’Sullivan, Sophie Becker, and Sarah Healy were others to triumph yesterday, while Lavin had the consolation of a terrific performance in the 100m hurdles on Saturday, when she defied the rain to set a new competition record of 12.79 seconds.
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