It’s good to be away from the noise sometimes
Rhasidat Adeleke will carry our nation’s Olympic dreams this summer, but the Dubliner admits she’s just like any other young woman trying to figure things out and admits...
WHEN Rhasidat Adeleke was in Disneyland Paris celebrating her tenth birthday, her father suggested that London might have been an even more magical choice.
It was August 2012, and the most thrilling Olympics in modern memory had only concluded a fortnight earlier.
‘I was like, “Oh, that would have been smart”,’ she laughs at the memory now.
But in truth, she probably got more from Mickey Mouse and friends, because 12 years ago Rhasidat wasn’t entranced by the Olympic Games, which for all the controversy and scandal, remains the greatest sporting show on earth.
It hadn’t yet captured the imagination of a kid from Tallaght.
A dozen years on, Rhasidat is primed to be the story of the Irish Olympic dream in Paris.
That’s big talk, hype of precisely the sort that has been slung across the shoulders of Irish hopefuls for generations, as they depart in pursuit of the Olympic flame with hearts full and a nation expectant.
In most cases, brutal reality intervenes, the astonishing standards that govern world-class sport are made clear, and the nearimpossible job of earning a place on the podium is a step too far.
Yet Rhasidat is such a pure talent and she has achieved so much in her young career to this point, that excitement is already building around her — and the Olympics are still over three months away.
Her national renown may not yet be at the level of the Irishwoman who wowed the world at that London Olympics in 2012, but come the opening ceremony of the Paris Games on July 26, she will be the name dominating Irish thoughts, just as Katie Taylor did in that magical summer.
‘I didn’t really watch it,’ Rhasidat reveals, speaking on Zoom from her base in Austin, Texas. ‘I knew of Usain Bolt, but other than that I didn’t really watch the Olympics.
‘2016 was the first one that I actually watched. I watched mainly the swimming, but I didn’t really watch track and field. Then 2021 of course, that was the one that I paid attention to, that was the first Olympics I was invested in. I knew all the athletes and I was watching each event thoroughly.’
She was 18 then, and a controversial omission from the Irish 4x400m relay team, despite having run faster than any other Irish woman in the lead-up to the Games in Tokyo.
The years since have seen her move on to another level, and it will be the 400m in which she will be targeting Olympic glory in the Stade de France this summer.
Tantalising possibilities stretch out before her — but her story to this point is already a fascinating one.
She was born on August 29, 2002, to Ade and Prince, who emigrated to Ireland from Nigeria in the 1990s. Rhasidat — who has a brother Abdullahi and a sister Latifah — was an active schoolgirl who, like so many others, dabbled in sports in school.
Teachers began to notice her athletic talent and she joined Tallaght Athletics Club when she was 12, where her gifts were honed.
The man who was perhaps more influential than most in shaping her raw brilliance was Johnny Fox, her first coach and a legendary figure in Irish athletics.
Among his notable achievements, he founded Tallaght AC, and also helped start the Darkness Into Light campaign.
He died a fortnight ago, with Rhasidat paying heartfelt tribute to someone she described as ‘just an amazing man’. The expertise and energy he devoted to Rhasidat wasn’t squandered, and by her mid-teens she was coming to national prominence.
In the summer of 2018, she won gold in the 200m at the European Youth Championships. A year later, she took gold on the double, in the 100m and 200m, this time at the European Youth Olympics.
Irish athletics was starting to get noticed, and for the first time ever, it was sprinters leading the charge. The country has a long tradition of producing middle and
‘In Texas, I was like, oh I don’t have my mam any more’
long-distance runners, but a generation of sprinters has emerged, of which Rhasidat is the star.
All of these achievements brought her to the attention of talent-spotters around the world, with the American varsity system one of the most elite athletic environments on the planet.
Colleges compete fiercely to sign up the best runners on scholarships and Rhasidat was not short of offers. In January 2021, six months after sitting her Leaving Cert, she moved to the prestigious University of Texas.
The challenge of leaving home for the other side of the world at the age of 18 is stark enough but she also did it months after her peers had started. ‘When I was at home, my mum was very handson,’ she explains. ‘She would literally take care of everything. She would make my breakfast, my lunch, my dinner, she would bring me everywhere.
‘So coming out here, I was like, oh, I don’t have my mam any more. I’m going to have to do all these things myself. I remember when I was doing my laundry, I was like, so how does this work? I was trying to figure so many things out.’
The kindness of classmates and teammates eased the transition, as did living in a dorm in her first months on campus. The university is based in Austin, the hipster city in Texas.
‘I was in a dorm in my freshman year, because I had arrived in January, whereas they had come in the fall,’ she recalls of her classmates. ‘So they were able to show me the ropes and they brought me around.
‘That allowed me to adjust very quickly, and they were all very nice and generous.
‘That definitely made the transition easier. As I grew up and matured and was able to know the city better, I was able to make my own way.’
Since then, she has lived on her own. That sounds like another significant step for a woman still only 21, but big decisions have been a part of Rhasidat’s life since she was a teenager. For instance, last summer she took the decision
to forego her scholarship and turn professional.
The move was inevitable — all that was to be decided was the timing, because she made such an impact in the revered National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It’s effectively a college competition, but with worldclass standards.
Rhasidat starred in it, especially last year. The quickest way to explain her run of form is by pointing to the six Irish records she broke, between indoor and outdoor events, in the 200m and 400m.
It was sensational and a move to full-time running was the next step. A contract with Nike, the sports behemoth that dominates athletics, followed. She has kept up her studies for a degree in Corporate Communications but you’d wonder what has been the biggest change between running on a scholarship and turning professional. She thinks for a moment.
‘I guess the responsibility,’ she offers. ‘Even though we’re all in college, and grown up and 20 years old, Texas University really handled pretty much everything.
‘You go to your compliance, you go to your academic co-ordinator, you go to your coach and you have a problem? They’ll fix it for you.
‘The thing with my coaches and stuff, I can still go to them. Flo [her coach, Eldrick Floreal] is very hands on.
‘My progression and my success is his goal. If I have a problem, he’s going to help me.
‘But when you’re not really affiliated with the school any more, you have to do a lot of things yourself. Now you have so many different people, like agents and managers, you become like your own CEO. So people are asking, “Rhasidat, what should we do here?” And I’m like, “I don’t know! You tell me!”
‘It’s become a lot of responsibility having to make big decisions yourself because ultimately it’s your life and I’m now in the driving seat as opposed to the passenger seat.
‘It was going to happen eventually, but it has happened so suddenly and it was an adjustment, but I’m getting used to it now.’
If she sounds well able for the demands, it’s because she has been meeting them for years.
I remind her that we first spoke in 2018, when she had just turned 16 and after that first European gold. She was at an event in Irishtown Stadium in Dublin with her mother, helping to promote a sporting festival for the city council.
Even then, as a fifth year student, she wasn’t overawed by what she had achieved — or what the future might hold.
‘I deal with pressure really well,’ she said on that occasion. ‘Pressure will come, but it’s not really pressure. It’s trying to compete like I usually do; don’t undercompete. Once I don’t do that, it’s grand.’
It sounded so simple, but it made complete sense to her, and her athletics career since has been faithful to that plain, bold ambition. Compete.
‘I definitely think my profile has got bigger over the years, but growing up I didn’t think I was famous,’ she laughs now, recalling the track from there to here. ‘I thought I was just normal. Even now, I still feel like I’m normal.’
There is nothing like the spartan athlete’s life to keep a person grounded, and Rhasidat’s life is necessarily basic.
It sounds a bit like Katie’s existence in America, another Irishwoman winning global fame from a base far from home.
The boxer has described running on isolated, snow-laden roads near her home in rural Connecticut. Austin may be much cooler, but Rhasidat is similarly committed to the demands necessary to excel. ‘It can be difficult,’ she concedes. ‘There definitely are times when it’s more on the relaxing side, and there are times when it can feel more hectic, especially when it gets into competition season.
‘But I’m all about balance. I think it’s important to be happy, to perform well on the track. I don’t like shutting myself off from the world. ‘When it’s training, I put everything into training. I make sure that I set myself up to be able to perform well at training, so I’m not too distracted. I try to go to bed early, eat the right foods, but I think it’s also important to connect to people.
‘I’m a social butterfly sometimes,’ she says, ‘so I might have a movie night with one of my friends and just chill at home, just relax and do things that won’t hinder my performance, but it still gives me an opportunity to socialise.
‘There are FaceTime calls too. It’s so simple nowadays, to be able to connect to people. It’s important to have that balance.’
Her season is now ramping up, with meets in America, the European Championships in Rome in June, and then fine-tuning towards the glittering target in Paris.
There are corporate responsibilities too. Rhasidat has recently launched SPAR’s Rome Comforts campaign, which encourages members of the public to share messages of support with her, as she misses the support of her club, community and country while she’s living in Texas. The winner will hand deliver a care package to her in Rome ahead of the European Championships.
As anticipation starts to build and people tune in to Ireland’s prospects, her name will become common currency. Anyone that doesn’t already know of her brilliance and what she might achieve, will certainly know by the night of July 26, the opening ceremony on the Seine, and the countdown to the track and field events.
One suspects being based on the far side of the Atlantic might not do her any harm as the hype starts to thicken.
‘It’s actually kind of good to be away from the noise sometimes,’ she allows. ‘It’s good to help me focus, and to make sure that I’m good mentally and physically, and getting all the hard work in, and not getting too distracted.
‘I know being at home there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of time to talk to people, meeting people, attending events. That can be a little bit taxing sometimes.
‘So sometimes it can be a good thing to miss out here and there, and be able to focus. There is a lot on my plate with school, track, travel and all those other things, so it can help.’
There speaks a wise voice — but a young one, too — from a woman who has sacrificed much in pursuit of sport’s most illustrious dream.
‘It’s a lot of responsibility, having to make big decisions’ ‘It’s important to connect to people... I’m a social butterf ly’
SPAR wants the Irish public to show why we are known as the best fans in the world. To win a three-day trip for two to handdeliver a SPAR care package to the sprint stars at the 2024 European Championships in Rome, shoppers are being asked to send messages of support for Rhasidat and fellow sprinter Israel Olatunde. Details available on spar.ie or @SPAR_Ireland on Instagram