Rhasidat Adeleke: Brightest light in Irish sport continues to set new standards

Here she comes, long and rangy, ready for the summer of her still young life. Rhasidat Adeleke won’t be 22 until late August, by which time she will know a lot more about herself and her ceiling. Put it like this – if, by then, her biggest achievement of 2024 remains one stellar week’s work at the World Relay Championships in the Bahamas last month, it’s going to all feel a bit underwhelming. She gets judged on a different curve to everyone else.

In saying that, we couldn’t let the moment pass without giving it its due – and so Adeleke is the May winner of The Irish Times Sportswoman of the Month award. And not before time either. The faint scratching noise you heard since the start of the year was that of the judges only itching to pick the month where it would be most appropriate to garland Ireland’s track superstar.

Back in January, she used her first two individual races of the season to break two Irish records in the space of an hour. That was at an indoor meeting in Albuquerque, where she set new times for the 60 metres and the 200 metres. This was her idea of easing into the new year.

Then in February, Adeleke went to the Millrose Games in New York and broke her own Irish 300 metres record. That race was ultimately a disappointment though – she seemed to have it in the bag before being pipped by Talitha Diggs on the line. Diggs is a serial medallist at the American national championships and a member of the gold medal-winning USA 4×400 metres relay team from the 2022 World Championships so it was maybe no disgrace. Adeleke was annoyed at herself all the same.

By March, she was moving on to a world record. Sorry, a world best – the 4×200 metres relay team of which she was a part set the time at the Texas Relays but since they were from different countries (two Americans, one each from Ireland and England), it wasn’t eligible to count as a world record. But nobody has ever run the race faster.

On to April then and it was an eye-catching 100 metres victory on her home track in Texas that screamed her name from the rooftops. Sarah Lavin’s Irish record is 11.27 – Adeleke ran a wind-assisted 10.84. Again, it doesn’t count as a record because the wind was so far beyond the legal strength (+3.5 metres per second, as opposed to the allowable +2.0). But even so, for Adeleke to drop down from her preferred distance of 400m and dip so far under 11 seconds was some going.

Four months, four standout performances – and still not a peep from the SWOTM judges. After the Bahamas, it could be left no longer. Adeleke was part of not one but two Ireland teams that went to the World Relay Championships and came home with qualification spots for the Paris Olympics. More than that, the mixed relay team for which she ran the second leg made the podium and came home with bronze.

[ Rhasidat Adeleke’s storming run leads Ireland to the medal podium at the World Athletics Relays ]

[ Rhasidat Adeleke: ‘Gold, I think everyone wants a gold medal’ ]

The relay championships were a two-day affair. On the Saturday, Adeleke and Sharlene Mawdsley both ran twice, 90 minutes apart, to qualify the mixed and women’s 4×400 metres teams for the final, thereby punching tickets to Paris for both teams. Both ran fantastic legs but it was Adeleke’s that really stood out.

Taking the baton in seventh place after Cillín Greene’s opening leg, the Tallaght sensation passed six runners on her lap to hand over to Thomas Barr in second. Indeed, her leg was so stunning, it took the race organisers by surprise – they lined Barr up in seventh place on the finish line to accept the changeover, causing Adeleke to have to go looking for him as she powered down the home straight. “I was so confused …” she said afterwards.

In the women’s 4×400 race an hour and a half later, she and Mawdsley combined with Sophie Becker and Phil Healy to set another Irish record. Despite it being her second race of the evening, Adeleke actually ran a faster leg to put Ireland in pole position. They won their heat and qualified for Paris.

[ Sensational Rhasidat Adeleke leads Irish relay teams to Paris Olympics on the double ]

Adeleke saved her best for the next day, when she ran the fastest leg of the weekend by any woman at the championships to set Ireland up for a medal. Her 48.45 took her past no less an opponent than Lieke Klaver, the world indoor silver medallist, and moved Ireland up from fourth to second. With Mawdsley going toe-to-toe against the immortal Femke Bol all the way around the final lap, it was stunning to watch an Irish sprint team compete at such a high level and not look out of place.

This is the realm into which Adeleke has moved herself – and Irish athletics. She heads to Rome this weekend for the European Championships where all things seem possible. It is a long time since Ireland went to a major athletics championship with so many medal hopes – Adeleke, Sarah Lavin, Ciara Mageean, Sarah Healy, the relays, maybe even Barr or Mawdsley at a push. Everyone fighting their own corner and running their own race. But led by Adeleke, and the world of anticipation that surrounds her.

Adeleke did another huge thing in May – she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. She completed her degree in Corporate Communications seven months early, taking on extra classes so that she could finish up in May rather than December. It may not be the last of her studies – she has spoken about possibly doing an MA in Finance in the next year or two. But it marks the end of a stunning few years in which she won three NCAA titles, including the individual 400 metres in 2023.

So here she is, the brightest light in Irish sport. And if you wanted final, definitive confirmation that Rhasidat Adeleke has arrived as a national icon, it came this week. Nothing to do with events in Rome, this is about Ireland’s unofficial honours system. On Wednesday, an article about her – written by The Irish Times’s very own track star Ian O’Riordan – appeared as a question in English Paper One of the Leaving Cert. That’s when you know you’re somebody.

For now, she’s the May winner of Sportswoman of the Month. There’s no telling where she’ll be by year’s end.