It came as no surprise when Rhasidat Adeleke was crowned the 2024 Athlete of the Year at the National Athletics Awards which took place in Dublin on Wednesday night.
It has been a monumental year for the Tallaght AC sprinter which has seen her set Irish records over a variety of distances both indoors and out.
She has been a key member of Irish 4 x 400m relay teams that have taken bronze medals at the World Relays, gold and silver at the Europeans.
Adeleke also claimed an individual silver in the 400m at those same Europeans in Rome.
Later the US-based athlete was just 0.3 of a second away from an individual 400m medal at the Olympics, a performance followed up by another fourth-place finish with the women’s 4x400m team.
She capped a tremendous summer season with a third-place finish in her debut at the Diamond League final. Adeleke was also given Sprint & Hurdles Athlete of Year Award.
Ciara Mageean was awarded the Middle-Distance Athlete of the Year accolade in recognition of lowering her 800m record in May before before going on to be crowned European 1500m champion a month later.
The Endurance Athlete of the Year Award went to Fionnuala McCormack who finished 28th in the Paris Marathon and in so doing being the first Irishwoman to compete in five Olympic Games.
The Field Athlete of the Year Award went to UCD’s Nicola Tuthill while Mayo’s Oisin Joyce won the U20 Athlete of the Year.
The women’s 4x400m Olympic team, fourth in Paris, picked up the Team of the Year Award. And World 20K walk silver medallist in 1994 Gillian O’Sullivan was inducted into the Hall of Fame for 2024. Neil Cusack received a special award in recognition of his victory in the Boston Marathon 50 years ago.
While Ciara Mageean was the only northern athlete honoured on the night, last weekend Ulster athletes enjoyed their best ever day at the Irish Senior Cross Country Championships.
The home venue obviously suited the runners from the northern province who claimed the senior women’s title through Letterkenny’s Ann-Marie McGlynn and the girls’ U20 with Willowfield’s impressive Lucy Foster as well as placing athletes in the minor podium spots in both U20 and U23 races.
However, it was in the team contests that Ulster clubs excelled. Of the eight teams to represent Ireland at the European Champion Clubs’ Cross Country in Portugal next year, no less than five will be from the red hand province.
CNDR (Candour) Track Club and North Belfast Harriers will line up in the senior men’s race at an Algarve venue while Letterkenny are one of the two Irish representatives in the senior women’s competition.
Lagan Valley’s youth policy over a number of years under the guidance of Jim McKeown is showing fruit with the Mary Peters Track-based club set to field teams in both U20 races.
Athletics Ireland will be assisting in meeting the cost with a €1000 grant to each team.
CNDR men’s team bridged a 69-year gap back to 1955 since the last team from the North won a senior all-Ireland cross country.
That was when northern clubs came away with all 14 medals on offer at the joint NIAAA/AAUE championship held in the Phoenix Park, only the first two individuals and six to score teams at that time received awards.
East Antrim’s Bill Dodds won the race and led his Ballyclare-based club to the team championship. Ballydrain Harriers, who had Johnny Marshall finish second, picked up the silver team medals to complete the Ulster domination.
In international news, the 1988 men’s 100m in Seoul, when Ben Johnson among others were guilty of doping, has long been regarded as the dirtiest race in history.
It was the subject of a book of that name, but it may now have a rival to that unwanted claim to fame with yet another name expunged from the 2012 women’s Olympic 1500m final.
Tatyana Tomashova has been stripped of her Olympic women’s 1500m silver medal. The Russian now becomes the fifth out of 12 finishers in the final to be disqualified retrospectively for doping offences.
The Russian was fourth across the finish line but was moved up after the first two in the race, Turkey’s Asil Cakir Alptekin and Gamze Bulut were banned for blood doping.
Belarus’s Natallia Kareiva, who came seventh, and Russia’s Yekaterina Kostetskaya, who was ninth, were also banned for doping offences.
Tomashova has indicated she will not appeal the 10-year ban meaning the Ethiopian-born Swedish athlete Abeba Aregawi, who was fifth in London, moves up to silver while the American Shannon Rowbury takes a belated bronze medal. Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey and Laura Weightman have been moved up to fifth and sixth respectively.
WEEKEND FIXTURES
SATURDAY
11am – RUN FOREST RUN – Gosford Forest Park, Markethill.
11am – Malcolm Cup Cross Country – QUB Playing Fields, Upper Malone
12am – Sperrin Harriers Winter League 5 Miles – An Creagan.
