It’s fast becoming a record per race for Rhasidat Adeleke, the Dublin sprinter this time taking a sizable chunk off her own Irish 200 metres mark – both indoors and out.
Competing in Florida at the Tom Jones Memorial, the 20-year-year clocked a world-class 22.34 seconds, after moving back down from her now chosen distance, the 400m. She will race that distance later on Saturday.
In her first individual outdoor race of the season, competing for the University of Texas, Adeleke improved her indoor mark of 22.52, run at altitude in Albuquerque back in January, an indoor and outright Irish record – the previous fastest mark outdoors being the 22.59 she ran in April last year.
There was a tailwind of 1.8m/s, inside the permitted 2m/s, still Adeleke tore up the track, finishing behind her University of Texas team-mate Julien Alfred, who won in 21.91, a national record too for her country, St Lucia.
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It’s also the fourth time she has broken an Irish record this year, already improving her own indoor 200m mark, and twice breaking her indoor 400m mark, running 50.33 indoors, that mark now sure to be improved sooner and not later.
Possibly in that 400m later today, where she is set to face Britton Wilson, the American athlete running for the University of Arkansas, who took gold at the NCAA Indoor Championships last month ahead of Adeleke, only for the Dublin sprinter to beat her handy at the Texas Relays two weeks ago.
There, Adeleke was part of four relay quartets, all of which won, setting NCAA records in the 4x100, 4x200 and the Sprint Medley, before anchoring the 4x400m with a hand-timed split of 49.2 seconds. Almost a record per race.
