Rhasidat Adeleke breaks Irish record and runs world’s fastest 200m this year

Records are there to be broken and Rhasidat Adeleke has certainly cracked the code, the Dublin sprinter running the so far fastest indoor 200 metres in the world this year and in suitably breathtaking fashion too.

With that Adeleke took a significant chunk off her own Irish record, her winning time of 22.52 seconds at the Martin Luther King Invitational in Albuquerque improving the 22.85 mark set on the same track last February.

It’s also faster than her own Irish outdoor record of 22.59. Still just 20, and now midway through her junior year at the University of Texas, it also puts Adeleke 25th on the world all-time 200m list indoors, with the clear promise of more to come.

Making the most of the outside lane, preferred in indoor sprinting, Adeleke’s powerful finish brought her home well clear of team-mate Julien Alfred, who finished in 22.71. It was also the fourth fastest time in the long history of track and field at the University of Texas

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Adeleke also took second place in the 60m, running 7.20 seconds, Alfred taking the win there in a new American NCAA record of 7.02 seconds.

She had only opened up her indoor season last weekend with the 4x400m relay at the Cardinal Classic meeting, home of the University of Louisville, Kentucky. Racing the second leg, she clocked a cool 51.8-second split, Texas taking the win in a facility record of 3:30.55.

This latest effort was her first individual race since the European Championships in Munich last August, where she finished fifth in the 400m final, running an Irish record of 50.53 seconds out of the unfavourable lane one, before leading the 4x400m relay team to a final placing, an Irish record on their way there also.

Adeleke’s indoor season all builds towards the NCAA championships on March 10th/11th, the Irish indoor 400m record of 51.58, set by Karen Shinkins 21 years ago, unquestionably a target along the way too as she focuses more on that longer event.

Elsewhere Eric Favors of Raheny Shamrock also broke his own Irish indoor shot put record with a 19.99m throw to finish fourth at the Larry Wieczorek Invitational in Iowa.

It continued a remarkable run of form by Favors which has seen him break the national indoor and outdoor shot put records on multiple occasions last season.

He broke the 20-metre mark several times during last year’s outdoor season, a distance which had eluded him for so long before his breakthrough performance in May 2022, which saw him take over from Olympian Paul Quirke’s national record which had lasted 30 years, his 20.04m from 1992.

Also in action at the Larry Wieczorek Invitational was Waterford’s Michael Power, who ran an excellent 7.50.12 personal best over 3,000m. placing second, to move into the top 10 on the Irish all-time list. Cormac Dalton of Mullingar was also in action in the same race, finishing in 4th with a brilliant 7.59.15.

There was also a lifetime 60m performance from Sarah Leahy of Killarney Valley AC, who posted a 7.32 in the Czech Republic to move to joint eighth on the Irish all-time list alongside Ailis McSweeney.