There was perhaps some gentle irony in Rhasidat Adeleke being promoted to third place in Friday night’s Diamond League final in Brussels, after Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser was disqualified for a lane infringement, although it was a visibly and understandably tiring end of season run over 400m by the Dublin sprinter.
Exactly five weeks after her fourth-place finish in the Olympics, and lining up against two of the medal winners from Paris, Adeleke finished in 50.96 seconds on a cool, damp evening the inside the King Baudouin Stadium in the heart of the Belgian capital, far from conducive for fast running.
Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic proved her dominance once again, winning in 49.45 seconds (taking the top prize of $30,000), well off the 48.25 the 27-year-old clocked to win the gold medal inside the Stade de France, though still unbeaten in the event this year.
“Of course I would have loved to run faster and closer to my personal best, but it was really, really cold tonight,” said Paulino. “A decent race at the end of a very long season.”
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Starting in lane four, with Paulino in five, Naser in six, the 22-year-old Adeleke went out a little more cautiously that her last Diamond League run in Poland two weeks after Paris, though was still in contention for a top three place coming into the homestretch, alongside Naser, who won silver in Paris.
Then Alexis Holmes from the US came darting through in lane three to nail second in 50.32, Adeleke originally ending up fourth, Naser holding on for third in 50.64, before her disqualification. Adeleke pocketed $7,000 for third.
Naser won the Olympic silver in Paris in 48.53, her fastest time since returning from a two-year doping ban in 2021, and she’s still competing despite the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) imposing a 12-month ban on the Bahrain Athletics Association (BAA) for “serious anti-doping rule violations” and “historical breaches of the World Athletics anti-doping rules” just eight months before the Paris Olympics.
Naser, along with all Bahrain athletes, were also disqualified from all World Athletics Series events for a year, although these don’t include the Diamond League.
Holmes was contesting her first Diamond event and finished sixth in the Olympic final in Paris, the 24-year-old running a personal best of 49.77, before winning gold with the 4x400m relay.
Still Adeleke’s long season clearly left her well running a little dry, having started her outdoor season over five months ago. One notable absentee was Natalia Kaczmarek from Poland, who edged Adeleke out of the Olympic bronze medal and had already called closing time on her season.
Interestingly, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the Olympic champion and world record holder in the 400m hurdles from the US, who had hoped to attempt a 200m-400m double this weekend, had to settle for the invitational race, which she won in a faster time of 49.10 seconds, well over a second ahead of Stacey Ann Williams from Jamaica, who took second there in 50.33.
Brussels was the climax of a particularly long summer that included the European Championships in Rome, where Adeleke won silver: she’d since returned to her base in Texas for one last training block under coach Edrick Floreal – and celebrated her 22nd birthday on August 29th – and can take plenty of encouragement from the brilliant progress she has made this season, including Irish records over 60m, 200m and 300m indoors, and 100m and 400m outdoors, a European gold medal with a mixed relay in Rome, and silver in the women’s 4x400m.
Adeleke duly qualified for Friday’s 400m final by virtue of several Diamond League appearances over the summer, including a victory in Monaco back on July 12th, where she ran 49.17 seconds – although she hasn’t run faster since.
Adeleke’s training partner Julien Alfed from St Lucia, who won Olympic gold in the 100m, showed little sign of tiredness here as she won in 10.88, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen from Norway also won the 1,500m in 3:30.37, Cole Hocker from the US, who won gold in Paris, third in 3:30.94.
