IF THIS IS the summer Rhasidat Adeleke transcends Ireland for global renown, the name of her coach will likely travel across Irish homes at the same time.
Edrick Floréal is the head coach of the track and field programme at the University of Texas, and Adeleke has remained under his tutelage as a professional.
Floréal – or Coach Flo – is going to dictate the schedule around which there will be national fascination at the Paris Olympics: is Rhasidat going to run the relays?
Adeleke is the difference between elevating Ireland’s relay teams from finalists to genuine medal prospects, proving so at the World Athletics Relays event in the Bahamas at the start of the month.
She ran both the mixed and women’s 400m relays in the Bahamas to help both teams to Olympic qualification, and then returned the following night with Thomas Barr, Cillín Greene, and Sharlene Mawdsley to seal a bronze in the mixed final. Adeleke’s ran the second leg in a stunning 48.45 seconds, the fastest in championship history.
The schedule at the Olympics will complicate Adeleke’s involvement, however, as she will likely target a medal in the star-stacked 400m individual event. The heats of the women’s 4x400m relay are on the morning of the 400m individual final, while the mixed relay appears a little more realistic, as it is slated for 2 and 3 August, with the individual heats kicking off on 5 August.
There are no decisions made yet, and Adeleke says it will be made by her coach.
“It really just depends on what my coach says, if he wants me to run the relays I’ll run the relays”, says Adeleke. “It depends on what he thinks is best, as he is very experienced. He knows from my training what I can do and what my fitness is looking like. If he thinks it is something that’s possible, I’d love to do the relays as I’d love to win a relay medal with my team.
“But if he thinks it won’t allow me to do what I should be able to do in an individual event, then it will just have to be that way. It really depends on what he has to say, he makes the decisions on those kinds of things.”
Coach Flo has also yet to make the final call on Adeleke’s schedule at next month’s European Championships in Rome. The event is more a means than an end for many athletes going to the Olympics less than two months later, and Adeleke is balancing that with her ambition for a medal. It seems she plans to run one of the relays in Rome, but it’s undecided as to whether she will run the 200m or 400m individual events. She hinted that she may focus on the 200m and a relay in Rome.
“The goal of the Europeans is to win a medal, hopefully a gold medal, in whichever event that will require the least amount of energy consumption”, she says, “considering I am going to be racing after that and will have the Olympics to prepare for. The 400 has two rounds back to back, and the 4×400 has another two rounds, so if I can do two 400s rather than four 400s, I think he would prefer that.”
He was happy to allow Adeleke run twice in one evening for the mixed and women’s relay teams in the Bahamas, given how important it was for all involved to secure Olympic qualification. He did insist that she run only one of the finals the following day: unsurprising given there was only a 20-minute break between the two races.
Adeleke was surprised at how well she ran in the Bahamas, though her coach was not.
“My coach wasn’t surprised at all, but I surprised myself, to see how strong I was”, she says. “I was able to get out and hold it the whole way, and continue to catch people. That proved to me how my training was going. My coach has been saying how well my training has been, but it’s not until you race you see it translate and you know, ‘I am in good shape.’ That made me very excited for the rest of the season.
“I think we have really put ourselves on the map. The Bahamas really put us on other people’s radars. Everyone was talking about Ireland. Even when we were about to run, on the [stadium] screen we were the country focus, for each relay. It definitely shows that people should be wary of us, and we are climbing to the top of the food chain when it comes to relays and other events.
“We are definitely a force to be seen and to be reckoned with and that’s really good going into the Olympics and other comps like the Europeans. It gives us confidence to know that yeah, these teams may have so-and-so, but we are just as fast.”
With a bronze medal around her neck, Adeleke gave an interview in the Bahamas in which she said she viewed the championships as a training session, bidding to build on what she has been working on with Floréal in Texas.
Asked where that mindset came from, Adeleke replied, “My fear of failure, but also my hunger for success. I want to be successful so bad. I want to be the best at everything I can do, and track is one of those things.
“When you think about it, it’s like reps. Doing the couple of runs the opening night, they were like reps: putting that mindset on that it’s going to hurt but it’s going to be okay, and that’s like training. When you are exhausted and dying with three more sets to go, you ask, ‘How can I do this?’ The mindset you have to turn on is, ‘This is going to hurt but it’s going to be worth it.’”
Rhasidat Adeleke as part of Allianz’s #StopTheDrop campaign. While sport is a part of our national DNA, 1 in 5 children stop participating in sport at the transition from primary to secondary school. As the largest insurer of schools in Ireland, insuring over 500,000 children, Allianz want to play a part in stopping the drop in participation. Visit allianz.ie/StopTheDrop for more.
