Another weekend and another two records for Tallaght sprinter Rhasidat Adeleke.
On this occasion Adeleke was competing at the Tom Jones Memorial meeting in Florida and chopped huge amounts from her own national 200m and 400m records.
The 20-year-old opened on Friday evening by stopping the clock over 200m at 22.34 seconds, with the assistance of a legal 1.8m/s tailwind.
She finished in runner-up behind her University of Texas team-mate Julien Alfred, who won in 21.91, a national record for her country, St Lucia.
That improved on her indoor mark of 22.52, run at altitude in Albuquerque back in January. That was both an indoor and outright Irish record, the previous fastest mark outdoors being the 22.59 Adeleke ran in April last year.
Adeleke returned to the track on Saturday for the 400m and wrote her name in Irish athletics history by becoming the first woman from this island to break 50 seconds for the distance. The Irish woman clocked 49.90 seconds and was rapidly closing down in the final metres the American collegiate champion and University of Texas colleague Britton Wilson who won in 49.51.
Breaking Irish records for fun.
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) April 15, 2023
Rhasidat Adeleke smashes the Irish 200m and 400m records with 22.34 and 49.90 at the Tom Jones Memorial in Gainesville! pic.twitter.com/BSwEZcDlcW
Her time improved her own record of 50.33 seconds set indoors at Lubbock, Texas in February.
Two weekends ago, Adeleke was part of four University of Texas relay quartets, all of which set NCAA records in the 4x100, 4x200 and the sprint medley, before anchoring the 4x400m with a hand-timed split of 49.2 seconds.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s BUPA Great Ireland 10K, incorporating the national championships for the distance, turned into a shambles when the field was misdirected and ended up running considerably less than the advertised distance.
Athletics Ireland are likely to withhold national championship medals.
Winner on the day was Jake O’Regan who covered the yet unconfirmed distance in 26 minutes and eight seconds.
Derry man John Paul Williamson was second over the finish line in 26:27, followed two seconds later by Eoghan McElhinney.
Inishowen’s Pauric McKinney (28:52) was the leading M55 while Scrabo Strider Norman Mawhinney (31:47) was the best of the M65 age group and Milford AC’s Martin Kerr (36:36) led home the M70 runners.
Karen Blaney (29:12), Cliona Murphy (29:22) and Dymphna Ryan (30:43) were the first three women.
There was another 10K yesterday in the rural village of Convoy (pop. 1526) in Co Donegal which proved to be the correct distance.
Rosses AC’s Declan Ferry was the winner of the race in 33:02, followed ten seconds later by Foyle Valley’s Matt McLaughlin with Letterkenny AC’s John McCallion (33:25) in third.
Another Letterkenny athlete Noeleen Scanlon finished well clear of the women’s field in 35:09 with Rosses AC’s Helen McCready (36:37) and Finn Valley’s Leoni Cooke (37:28) filling the minor places on the podium.
