IRELAND’S best hope for a medal enters the fray on the fifth day of the athletics programme at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Rhasidat Adeleke lines up in her heat of the 400m on Monday morning but will need a lot of work and a little good fortune if she is to end up on the medal dais this Friday.
The Tallaght athlete looked to be a safe bet for a medal until the formbook was rewritten at the recent Diamond League in London when US collegiate (NCAA) champion Nickisha Pryce recorded a world-leading time of 48.57 on her professional debut.
That time lifted the 23-year-old Jamaican to seventh on the world all-time list and it is hard to see her beaten if she can reproduce that form.
Pryce is one of only two women who have broken the 49 seconds this year, the other being Poland’s European champion Natalia Kaczmarek who was a distant second in London behind Pryce recording a personal best of 48.90.
World champion Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic should also be under 49 seconds, having claimed the world title last year in 48.76.
Paulino has made a less auspicious start to the season although she did defeat Kaczmarek in the Paris Diamond League last month with a seasonal best timing of 49.20 seconds.
It is unsure if Rio and Tokyo Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo will compete, given that she was injured at the Bahamian trials in June. Even in her absence, Adeleke has it all to do if she is to claim Ireland’s first Olympic track medal since 2000, when Sonia O’Sullivan was runner-up in the 5000m at the Sydney Games.
The 21-year-old has concentrated this season to date on reducing her times for the shorter distances, setting an Irish 100m record at the national championships in Dublin. That augurs well for an improvement of her best 400m time of 49.07 which ranks her third among those contesting the event in Paris.
Adeleke’s prospects are perhaps best summed up by Olympic legend Michael Johnson: “What I’d say to the Irish fans, who I know are super-excited about Rhasidat, is that she could win the Olympic gold medal here – there’s a possibility. She could medal here, that’s a possibility, and she could be out of the medals. All three of those are real possibilities.”
Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker bring the Irish representation to three in today’s heats. Both will have benefitted from their run out in the mixed relay on Friday evening. Mawdsley is expected to progress directly to the semi-finals, while Becker may have to face the dreaded repechage round tomorrow.
Cathal Doyle was the only one of the three Irish athletes to make it through the repechage round of the 1500m on Saturday evening. Doyle had a memorable victory in the first of the two races recording a time of 3:34.92 with only the first three in each progressing to the semi-finals. Luke McCann finished seventh behind Doyle in 3:36.50. Andrew Coscoran was 12th in the other repechage in 3:39.45.
On Sunday, Nicola Tuthill delivered a strong performance in the women’s hammer, but ultimately failed to make the final.
The 20-year-old from Cork, who represents UCD where she is currently studying, equalled the second-best throw of her career, throwing 69.90m in the final round of her qualification group.
On her Olympic debut the young athlete showed terrific composure throwing 68.87m in the second round following an unfortunate foul in her opening throw.
The performance was good enough to finish in 16th position overall, of the 30 competing, and notably the Bandon AC Tuthill was the youngest in the whole field.
Speaking afterwards Tuthill was proud of her efforts: “It’s amazing. That’s my second furthest throw ever, I’ve hit 69.90m twice now so I’m dying to break 70m again, it’s there, looking at me, waiting. It would’ve been nice to get it today but I’m only 20 so I’m the youngest person in the field so to be able to come 16th is amazing.”
