Rhasidat Adeleke leads Ireland’s contingent to Budapest 23 World Championships

Aug 5, 2023 - 10:52

Sprinkled with potential finalists and perhaps one or two medal hopes, a team of 23 athletes will represent Ireland at the 19th edition of the World Athletics Championships, beginning on Saturday, August 19th at the new purpose-built stadium in Budapest.

It is the largest ever Irish representation, 40 years after Eamonn Coghlan struck gold over the 5,000 meters at the inaugural championships in Helsinki in 1983.

Included are 16 individual entries plus two relays – the women’s 4x400m and the mixed 4x400m – with Rhasidat Adeleke and Ciara Mageean leading the way in terms of potential finalists and medal hopes, both setting national records already this season.

Still only 20, Adeleke is ranked fourth in the world over 400m this season, thanks to her 49.20 clocked in June, while Mageean has been mixing it with the best 1,500m runners again this season, also breaking Sonia O’Sullivan’s long-standing national mile record last month, running 4.14.58.

There’s a full Irish quota in that women’s 1,500m, Sarah Healy and Sophie O’Sullivan also qualifying, the 21-year-old O’Sullivan set to make her World Championship debut 30 years after her mother Sonia won silver in the same event in Stuttgart in 1993.

Around 2,000 athletes from 200 countries are set to compete, and there is the potential for three more Irish athletes to get a call-up, Nick Griggs (1,500m), Michelle Finn (3,000m steeplechase) and Kate O’Connor (Heptathlon) sitting just outside quota qualification positions, with the potential to move into selection spots.

Ireland’s last three medals at this level came in the race walks, Gillian O’Sullivan (silver in 2003), Oliver Loughnane (gold in 2009),