No Irish sporting occasion boasts more history than the National Track and Field Championships, and never before in the now 152nd consecutive stagings of the event — the longest running anywhere in the world — has it served as a sort of homecoming and a send-off at the same time.
And for no Irish athlete more than Rhasidat Adeleke. Just over two weeks since winning three medals at the European Championships in Rome, and just under a month before her departure for the Paris Olympics, Adeleke will race at home for the first time in two years, the Dublin sprinter focusing on Sunday’s 100m as she looks to sharpen her speed for the big showdown to come.
Though the championships were first staged on July 7th 1873, at College Park in Trinity, it was 1929 before the first women’s sprint event, when Maura Barrett from Dublin won the then 100 yards in 12 seconds flat.
Three years ago, Adeleke won her first 100m title in 11.29 seconds, a championship record. Adeleke won again in 2022 in 11.68, this time running into a -9.36km/h headwind, and the wind conditions come Sunday’s final (1.35pm) may ultimately determine whether she claims the one Irish sprint record not yet under her name.
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What is certain is that the 21-year-old won’t have it all her own way. Adeleke didn’t race here last year due to injury (though she did still meet her ever-increasing fan base) and in her absence, Sarah Lavin pulled off a rare sprint double in the 100m and 100m hurdles. Lavin is eying a similar double this weekend, the hurdles up first on Saturday.
Ciara Mageean’s decision to skip the event for a fifth consecutive year, the 32-year-old still recovering from her gold medal run in Rome, likely sets up another duel between Sarah Healy and Sophie O’Sullivan, Healy just edging the win last year.
Six of the other medal winners from Rome will be there, with Chris O’Donnell, who ran the lead leg in the mixed 4x400m team that won gold, looking to win a sixth 400m title in seven years, and with that seal his relay berth for Paris.
Sharlene Mawdsley moves down to 200m, Thomas Barr hopes to seal his Paris quota spot in the 400m hurdles, and if Andrew Coscoran, Luke McCann and Cathal Doyle don’t dodge each other, the three 1,500m men in Paris qualifying spots, that might well produce one of the best races of the weekend.
- Saturday and Sunday will be streamed on Athletics Ireland’s YouTube channel, with live coverage on RTÉ 2 from 12.45-2.30pm on Sunday. Adult entrance is €11 each day, a two-day ticket costs €17 while under-16s go free.
