Israel Olatunde is moving to the US to join the elite sprint training group of Olympic 100 metres champion Noah Lyles, who are based in Clermont, Florida and coached by Lance Brauman.
Brauman’s training group are partnered with Adidas, who also sponsor Olatunde, and the 22-year-old Dublin sprinter will make the move to the US next month for an initial one-year period.
The move to join the Lyles group has been in discussion over the last number of weeks, along with Brauman and Olatunde’s coach in Dublin, Daniel Kilgallon.
Last Sunday, Olatunde broke his own Irish 100 metres record, clocking 10.12 seconds to win at the Newham Open meeting in London, taking a full .05 off his previous mark set two years ago.
Based at the National Training Centre in Clermont, 35km west of Orlando, Brauman’s training team started in 2007 and is known as the PURE sprint group (Perfect Understanding of Running Efficiency), with 2007 World 100m and 200m champion Tyson Gay also from the US among his first global successes.
The 27-year-old Lyles, a native of Gainesville, Florida, has been running professionally with Adidas since 2016 and in last year became a three-time World Champion, winning the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay for the US.
At the Paris Olympics earlier this month Lyles became the first US 100m champion in 20 years, coming from last to first to win in a new personal best of 9.784 seconds. Lyles later won bronze in the 200m behind Letsile Tebogo from Botswana, after which he revealed that he had tested positive for Covid-19 since his 100m success.
Earlier this year, Olatunde was in Clermont on three-week warm-weather camp with his with coach Kilgallon and five other members of the sprint group at Tallaght Athletics Club. It was there Kilgallon first made contact with the Brauman group.
Kilgallon has successfully guided Olatunde since he first emerged from the schoolboy ranks in 2019. Olatunde, a native of Dundalk, initially came up through Dún Dealgan AC, where he was first coached by Gerry McArdle.
Olatunde’s previous Irish record of 10.17 seconds was set when finishing sixth in the 2022 European Championships final in Munich, which eclipsed Paul Hession’s mark of 10.18, which had stood since 2007.
After a difficult 2023, Olatunde gradually regained his best form again this summer, coming from behind to win the national title in June in 10.27, his fourth successive senior 100m title, also winning three successive 60m indoor titles.
Brauman’s training group formerly included Shaunae Miller-Uibo from the Bahamas, the Olympic 400m champion in 2016 and 2020, with world 400m record holder Wayde van Niekerk from South Africa also joining the group earlier this year.
Olatunde is not the first Irish sprinter to make the move into Brauman’s training group, with six-time Paralympics gold medal winner Jason Smyth also spending extended periods of time there from 2009.
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