They say running 400m flat out in the hunt for championship medals can feel like orbiting outer space at high speed, the gravity of rising lactic acid and urgency of the occasion dragging you down.
If the moment of re-entry is anything to go by, Rhasidat Adeleke was indeed at the absolute limit of her oxygen debt. As soon as she crossed the line of Wednesday night’s World Championship final in fourth, half a second away from the bronze medal she came to an immediate standstill. Utterly spent, physically and mentally.
Rhasidat had a quick glance over at the clock, noting the winning time of Marileidy Paulino, the 26-year-old from the Dominican Republic who had just improved her lifetime best to 48.76 seconds. Runner-up at the last World Championships, and at the Tokyo Olympics, Paulino produced a suitably inspired and scintillating run.
The race for silver and bronze was decided on the dip, Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek nailing second in 49.57, just .03 ahead of Sada Williams from Barbados in 49.60. Then came Adeleke in 50.13.
‘It was just general fatigue my body was just kind of breaking down a bit’
The overwhelming sense in the immediate aftermath of the race was that Adeleke’s medal chance will come again, ideally as soon as the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Consider first what even getting into this final represented. A week shy of her 21st birthday, Adeleke was the youngest of the eight finalists, by far the least experienced in her first global final.
“It’s extra motivation for next year, getting so close,” Adeleke conceded. “I just went out a bit faster than I did in the previous rounds, felt it in the end, the last 50m, but at the end of the day I tried my best and that’s all I can do.”
Consider second her 2023 season, the priority before Budapest being her third year at the University of Texas in Austin. She started racing indoors in January, became the first Irish woman to run sub-50, finished second at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March, before winning the outdoor title on June 10th in that sensational Irish record of 49.20 seconds.
In the 10 weeks between winning that title and Sunday’s opening heat in Budapest, Adeleke raced twice: running 22.36 for 200m, then 49.99 for 400m to finish fourth at the Monaco Diamond League.
She signed a professional contract with Nike on July 16th, which will mean foregoing her last year of eligibility at Texas, and missed some key training. “It was just general fatigue,” she explained on Wednesday, “my body was just kind of breaking down a bit. But I was just able thankfully to get back into decent shape to be able to compete.”
If this was her in only “decent” shape, then next season promises so much more, particularly being out of that demanding NCAA schedule. Had she matched her 49.20 on Wednesday night, she would have won the silver medal, although things rarely work that way in finals.
There’s every reason to believe Adeleke’s chance will come again, although it can’t be taken for granted. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who clocked a world-leading 48.74 in July to win the US 400m title, withdrew earlier this month due to a “minor knee injury”. The Olympic and World Champion in the 400m hurdles will now turn her focus to Paris.
Defending world and Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo from the Bahamas is still only 29 and was a notable presence in the third heat, finishing seventh in 52.65, a highly impressive result given she’s only returned to racing four months after giving birth to her son in April.
Like Adeleke, Britton Wilson and Talitha Diggs from the US have just gone pro while Salwa Eid Naser will also come into the equation.
Still Adeleke is unquestionably in that Paris medal conversation, and that’s plenty good for now.
