IT was a busy weekend on the international stage for Irish athletes despite it still being very early season.
Rhasidat Adeleke flew to the fastest ever 100m by an Irish woman to win the 100m at the Texas Relays in Austin.
The Tallaght athlete stopped the clock at an incredible time of 10.84 seconds but unfortunately it will not count for record purposes on account of a following wind reading (+3.5 metres per second wind) which was well above the permitted limit (+2.0 m/s).
Adeleke did, however, defeat two World champions in Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith and Julien Alfred from St Lucia.
Asher-Smith claimed the global 200m gold in 2019, while Alfred was a surprise winner of the 60m at the World Indoors in Glasgow earlier this year.
The current Irish 100m record stands to Sarah Lavin with a time of 11.27 seconds and should be easy pickings for Adeleke at some point this coming season.
City of Lisburn’s Lauren Roy clocked a legal 11.71 mark in heat three of the 100m.
Two Irish athletes remained in China this week for the second Diamond League fixture of the season in Shanghai.
Mark English adopted the exact opposite tactics to those he employed in Xiamen seven days earlier and was rewarded with a season’s best of 1:46.47.
English was adrift at the back of the field early on but the Finn Valley clubman weaved his way through the opposition on the home straight to take seventh spot behind Slimane Moula of Algeria who won in 1:44:55.
Brian Fay was 10 seconds down in the 5000m on his Xiamen time with a 13:25.37 mark for 13th place behind Ethiopian Selemon Barega (12:55.68).
Commonwealth Games silver medallist Kate O’Connor finished runner-up in the 37th International Multi-Stars Heptathlon in Brescia, Italy.
The Dundalk all-rounder scored 6104 points behind American Taliyah Brooks (6330) with Switzerland’s Katelyn Adel in third.
O’Connor had moved up yesterday from her sixth position overnight.
At home the attention was on yesterday’s National Road Relays in Dublin where there was some success for north west clubs.
City of Derry Spartans struck gold in the O50 men’s race through Declan Reed, Colin Roberts, and Ronan Healy.
Neighbours Inishowen claimed second spot thanks to a notable contribution from talisman Pauric McKinney.
Finn Valley were third in the O50 women’s relay while Clonliffe Harriers men and Dundrum South Dublin’s women claimed the senior titles.
And it seems no weekend is complete without a world record.
On this occasion 800m specialist Emmanuel Wanyonyi stepped up in style, breaking the world road mile record with a 3:54.56 timing at the Adizero Road to Records event in Herzogenaurach, Germany, on Saturday.
The Kenyan 19-year-old improved the previous world record of 3:56.13 set by USA’s Hobbs Kessler in Riga last October.
Kessler had to settle for second this time in 3:56.18.
