On a crisp, clear morning in late January 2022, sitting outside the Sports Centre in UCD, Israel Olatunde was asked if he could some day break the long-standing Irish 100 metres record, the 10.18 seconds set by Paul Hession in 2007.
Olatunde was still only 19, and had already won his first Irish senior 100m title the previous summer, with a then current best of 10.41 seconds. But Hession’s mark hadn’t been touched in the near 15 years since he’d run it, first taking the record to 10.28 seconds, then two weeks later running his 10.18.
“Right now, my only goal now is to run as fast as I can,” Olatunde said. “If I do that the records will come, over the years, they will fall. Loads of respect for Paul Hession, Irish records at 60m, 100m, and 200m. That’s so impressive, honestly. But records are meant to be broken, it just means something right is being doing in the sport.”
Just over six months later, Olatunde had taken over that mantle as Ireland’s fastest man, running 10.17 seconds to finish sixth in the European Championships 100m final in Munich in August 2022, finishing just .04 off a medal, and taking just .01 off Hession’s Irish mark.
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At age 20, the Drogheda-born sprinter was also already mixing it with the world’s best; that race in Munich won by Italy’s then reigning Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs. Olatunde was only at the beginning of his career.
According to the evolution of Irish national records published by Athletics Ireland, the first acknowledgment of Ireland’s fastest man was the 100 yards record of 10-and-one-half seconds set by William Armstrong at the College Races in Trinity College Park, in May 1867.
Since the introduction of fully automatic timing in 1971, the Irish 100 metres record had, before Olatunde, only been improved by seven different men, starting with the 10.85 seconds set by Vinny Becker in London in July 1971.
Dublin sprinter Derek O’Connor twice broke the record, running 10.61 seconds in 1983, then 10.58 seconds in 1985. Brothers Gary and Neil Ryan from Tipperary improved the record fives between them, Gary also equalling it in 2004 when he ran 10.35, matching the mark set by Paul Brizzel in June 2000.
After improving Hession’s mark in August 2022, Olatunde appeared set to continue in that fast lane but, despite an encouraging start to 2023 when he took down the Irish 60m indoor record which had also stood to Hession since 2007, his progression unquestionably stalled.
Last season, his best remained at 10.32, well short of qualifying for the 2023 World Championships.
“Once you hit such a huge height, there’s often a big drop off, I guess emotionally and mentally,” Olatunde said back in May.
“But no one’s career is going to be an upward trajectory, that’s something I’ve learned. You just have to keep knocking on the door and it’s eventually going to open.”
He’d started the season with a full-time training camp in Clermont, Florida with his coach Daniel Kilgallon and five other members of the sprint group at Tallaght AC.
After missing out on the final at the 2024 European Championships in Rome, again down on his best with a 10.40 clocking, there was signs of his 2022 form returning when he won a fourth successive Irish 100m title in July, clocking 10.27 seconds.
That also came shortly before his close friend and former training partner at Tallaght AC Rhasidat Adeleke also won another Irish 100m title, taking the women’s record to 11.13 seconds.
After missing out on the Paris Olympics (the automatic qualifying time set at 10 seconds flat), Olatunde returned to the track at the low-key sprint meeting in Newham, London on Sunday afternoon, and won in 10.12 seconds – taking .05 off his own mark.
Still only 22, suddenly that 10-second barrier is not as far off as it once appeared.
“For sure, I think about breaking 10 seconds one day,” he said on that same morning in January 2022. “The faster you get, the harder it is to improve. If I just keep doing what I need to do, that can come.”
Progression of Ireland’s fastest men (since fully automatic timing)
10.85 Vinny Becker, London, July 1971
10.78 Colman O’Flaherty, Trostberg, Germany, September 1977
10.74 Colman O’Flaherty, Belfield, Dublin, July 1978
10.61 Derek O’Connor, Cork City Sports, July 1983
10.58 Derek O’Connor, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, April 1985
10.56 Gary Ryan, Ljubljana, Slovenia, May 1996
10.54 Gary Ryan, Riga, Latvia, June 1996
10.48 Gary Ryan, Cork City Sports, June 1996
10.46 Neil Ryan, Riga, Latvia, May 1997
10.45 Gary Ryan, Santry, Dublin, July 1999
10.35 Paul Brizzel, Haapsalu, Estonia, June 2000
10.35 Gary Ryan Cork City Sports, July 2004
10.28 Paul Hession, Kalamata, Greece, June 2007
10.18 Paul Hession, Vaasa, Finland, June 2007
10.17 Israel Olatunde, Munich, Germany, August 2022
10.12 Israel Olatunde London, August 2024
