Rhasidat Adeleke breaks Irish 100m record in perfect Paris tune-up

Gone in 11.13 seconds! Everyone suspected it was living on borrowed time, and Rhasidat Adeleke has now claimed the last Irish sprint record not already under name, blazing the 100 metres mark down ever closer to the 11-second barrier. She is now officially Ireland’s fastest woman.

Rarely if ever in the now 152nd consecutive staging of these National Track and Field championships has any event been as hotly anticipated as this, Adeleke facing off against Sarah Lavin, who last summer had taken that Irish 100m record down to 11.27 seconds to sit along her Irish record in the sprint hurdles.

Crucially, the reasonably warm and dry conditions at the Morton Stadium in Santry were near perfect for flat-out sprinting on Sunday afternoon. With a slight 0.7m/s tailwind into the home straight, Adeleke seized her chance with magnificent intent, storming from the gun straight down the track to take the win in 11.13 seconds, Lavin several metres behind to nail second in 11.37

Considering this is just a tune-up for her now specialist 400m event for next month’s Paris Olympics, it’s another significant confidence boost too for Adeleke, who delighted one of the largest crowds present at the event in many years when she promptly jogged back down the straight to accept their acclaim.

Adeleke started the 10-woman final in lane six, Lavin two lanes inside her in lane four. But the Tallaght AC sprinter was gone on the B of the bang, her record intentions clear. In the end the finish wasn’t even close, her record-breaking margin historic,

In all it’s the now 52nd Irish record broken for the still 21-year-old Adeleke, across all age groups, which must be an unsurpassable record in itself. It started six years ago when she first broke the Irish Youth 200m record, clocking 23.80 seconds in 2018.

Since then Adeleke has repeatedly claimed senior records at 60m, 200m, 300m, and 400m – indoors and outdoors – her 50th record ratified back in April over 300m indoors. Since then she has improved her own Irish 400m record to 49.07 when winning silver at the European Championships in Rome just over three weeks ago.

“It’s no secret, one of the records she really wants, is that Irish 100m record,” Adeleke’s coach Edrick Floreal said earlier this year.

Just under three hours earlier, both Adeleke and Lavin cruised their semi-finals, Adeleke clocking 11.54 seconds with a slight tailwind, before Lavin won her semi-final in 11.51

Lavin, recently turned 30, did the golden sprint double here last year and went on to break Phil Healy’s Irish 100m record when clocking 11.27 in Switzerland.

After winning those three medals at the European Championships in Rome, including silver and just under a month before her departure for the Paris Olympics, Adeleke was racing at home for the first time in two years, The Dublin sprinter had decided to focus on Sunday’s 100 metres only as she looks to sharpen her speed for the big Paris showdown to come.

Lavin was back on the track less than 24 hours after defending her 100m hurdles title, her 16th national title in all. Despite the torrential June downpours on Saturday afternoon, she clocked a brilliant 12.79 seconds, also taking down the championship record 12.95 which had stood to Derval O’Rourke for the last 19 years.

Three years ago, Adeleke won her first 100m title in 11.29 seconds, which despite the wind-assisted +2.6 m/s, had stood as the championship record. Adeleke won again in 2022 in 11.68, this time running into a -2.6m/s headwind,

Adeleke didn’t race here last year due to injury, when Lavin pulled off a rare sprint double in the 100/100m hurdles

So before today, Adeleke’s legal best was 11.31, set in 2021, but she also ran that wind-assisted 10.84 in Texas in April, her now national record 11.13 seconds perfectly satisfying for now.

In the next race, Israel Olatunde, also from Tallaght AC, won his seventh national 100m title, winning in 10.27 seconds, breaking 10.30 for the first time in two years. Borin Akinola was a close second in 10.29.