Rhasidat Adeleke to open 2024 season at Texas Relays later in March

Despite fresh flashes of her record-breaking form, Rhasidat Adeleke has admitted any fear of missing out on last weekend’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow has been quickly tempered by what’s fast coming down the tracks.

Speaking from her training base at the University of Texas at Austin, Adeleke confirmed her plans to open her outdoor season in just over three weeks, scheduling several races at the famed Texas Relays on the last weekend in March.

She’s also committed to the World Athletics Relays in The Bahamas on May 4th-5th, where both the Irish women’s 4x400m relay and mixed 4x400m relay will look to secure their Paris qualification.

After that she’s pencilled in the European Athletics Championships, set for the Stadio Olimpico in Rome from June 7th-12th – the slightly shortened six-day championships also presenting one of the final Olympic qualifying opportunities before Paris.

Adeleke had improved her own Irish indoor 60m, 200m and 300m records in the weeks before Glasgow, but then decided along with her coach Edrick Floreal that the championships weren’t worth targeting at this stage of the season.

“Yeah, it was up in the air, because I was still in a big training cycle,” she says. “And then I just decided pop into a 400m, then the 60m and the 200m, then me and my coach just decided it’s best to keep training ahead, get some more work in, instead of taking a couple of weeks off to taper, to get ready for World [Indoor] Champs.

“Because the outdoor season starts so quickly, we have Texas relays, we have some other meets starting up, so we just want to best prepare ourselves for the season, keep getting that hard load in, until you have to taper for those continues meets that are going to happen this summer.”

Adeleke admitted too she didn’t actually watch much of Glasgow, beyond catching some social media posts of the fifth-place finishes, for Sarah Lavin in the 60m hurdles, and the women’s 4x400m relay, plus Sharlene Mawdsley’s widely considered harsh disqualification after qualifying for the 400m final.

“Honestly, I actually don’t really watch athletics that much. Like I definitely was tuned into the Irish, and some of my teammates, looking up the results and videos on Twitter and stuff. But, it was really, really entertaining to see everyone doing so well.

“I know it was really hard to see some of the Irish, like Sarah [Healy] fall, then Sharlene being disqualified, because making the world final is so huge, then to be disqualified is so unfortunate. But then the relay team did really well too.

“And Sarah Lavin as well, so I think it was a decent, pretty good championship overall.”