The last Irish sprint record not already belonging to Rhasidat Adeleke was obliterated in 11.13 seconds, and then came the marathon of wild acclaim and giddy adulation not witnessed since the heydays of the Morton Stadium in Santry.
Rarely if ever in the now 152nd consecutive staging of these National Track and Field championships had any event been as hotly anticipated as this, Adeleke facing off against Sarah Lavin, who last summer had taken that Irish 100 metres record down to 11.27 seconds to sit along her Irish record in the sprint hurdles.
Everyone here suspected that record was living on borrowed time anyway, before Adeleke took to her blocks on Sunday afternoon, was gone on the B of the bang, and blazed the 100m mark down ever closer to the 11-second barrier – the 21-year-old from Tallaght now officially Ireland’s fastest woman to boot.
“I think that was the most special, not even the national record, but the appreciation from everyone who was cheering my name,” Adeleke said afterwards, when eventually freed from the mobs of young fans desperate for her autograph.
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“Honestly, I don’t remember there being so many people at Nationals, but I absolutely love it. It just shows how much our sport has grown, and hopefully over the next few years we’ll be able to completely pack out the stadium.”
Crucially, the reasonably warm and dry conditions around Santry were near perfect for flat-out sprinting. 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 decades when she promptly jogged back down the straight to accept their acclaim.
It was a sort of homecoming and send-off for several other Irish athletes before Paris – Mark English claiming his 18th Irish 800m title, between indoors and out, Thomas Barr making it number 12 in the 400m hurdles, and Sophie O’Sullivan winning her first senior 1,500m title – only there was no disputing Adeleke was the headline act.
“Having them all cheer me on when they called my name at the start I was like, ‘I want to put on a show and do something special’,” she said. “I think I got out okay, and I always blur out in the 100m, but that was the one record I was waiting for. And to be able to achieve it here, saving the 100m for in front of my home crowd, is just amazing.”
In all, it’s the now 52nd Irish record broken for the still 21-year-old, 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. She also improved her own Irish 400m record to 49.07 when winning silver at the European Championships in Rome just over three weeks ago.
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 that 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.
Lavin was back on the track less than 24 hours after defending her 100m hurdles title, her 16th national title in all, where despite the torrential June downpours on Saturday afternoon, she clocked a brilliant 12.79 seconds, a championship record.
It took a photo-finish to decide third, Mollie O’Reilly marginally edging out Gina Apke-Moses, both timed at 11.61, with Molly Scott sixth in 11.65, and Ciara Neville seventh in 11.73. It was a welcome return to form for Apke-Moses, the European Under-20 champion in 2017, and who also won a 4x100m silver in 2018 along with Adeleke, Scott and Neville.
“Yeah, It was such a stacked race too, so many amazing women in the field,” added Adeleke. “We kind of grew up racing each other, and to have all of us back here, and to put on the performances we put on today, it’s amazing, because it’s not often you’ll see 11.1 winning a National Championships, it just shows how much we’ve developed, and we’re all going to keep getting better, and really excited to see that.”
In the next race, Israel Olatunde, also from Tallaght AC, won his seventh national 100m title, the still 22-year-old winning in 10.27 seconds, breaking 10.30 for the first time in two years. Bori Akinola of UCD was a close second in 10.29.
Adeleke will now head to a training camp in Sweden this week, ahead of Diamond League races in Monaco on July 12 and then London the following week, before all the focus turns to the 400m in Paris.
With confirmation over the weekend that Shaunae Miller-Uibo from the Bahamas won’t defend her back-to-back 400m Olympic title in Paris due to injury, that event is now poised to have new champion for the first time since 2012.
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