The 21-year-old Dubliner is drawn in lane eight and while she won’t be ecstatic about that – her chief rivals in the lanes alongside her, able to gauge their effort off her – she will be pleased about the athletes she has avoided, namely her three chief rivals in the hunt for medals: Marileidy Paulino of Dominican Republic, Nickisha Pryce of Jamaica and Natalia Kaczmarek of Poland.
That’s because there can be a big difference between a win in the semi-final and a runner-up finish. The three winners, plus the fastest second-placer, will be put in the favourable lane draw for the final, spread from lanes five to eight, so none of the main contenders will want to take a chance on finishing second and going into the draw for less favourable lanes.
Adeleke has plenty of quality in the lanes inside, with Dutch star Lieke Klaver in six and 2019 world champion Salwa Eid Naser, who’s back after a ban for missing drugs tests, in lane seven. Adeleke is over half a second quicker than both this year, and while both are fast starters and will likely keep Adeleke company until 300m, the Dubliner should have too much for them down the home straight.
Young athletes at Tallaght Athletic Club
She demonstrated a different race approach in her heat on Monday to the European final, going out three tenths of a second quicker in the first half though, crucially, she still felt relaxed. “I feel like my first 200 was pretty calm,” she said. “I didn’t go too aggressive.”
Adeleke clocked a swift 50.09 despite easing down and depending on how much of a threat she comes under from Naser, she may or may not need to run all out tonight. If she does, her first sub-49-second run could occur. Then she could truly start thinking about a medal. As she said on Monday: “I’m not happy to participate, I want to achieve my goals. My goal wasn’t just to come to the Olympics, my goal was to do something special.”
A quartet of Irish athletes will be in action this morning, with Sarah Lavin going in the 100m hurdles heats at 9.39am. The Limerick athlete will need a top-three finish to automatically advance and it looks a tall order given there are three others who’ve run 12.4 this year, Lavin’s season’s best being 12.66.
Mark English opens his campaign in the men’s 800m heats at 11.03am, the Donegal athlete looking for a top-three finish to avoid the repechage. He’s seeded fifth on season’s bests.
Sophie O’Sullivan and Sarah Healy make a quick turnaround for the 1500m repechages at 11.45, the pair both finishing seventh in their heats yesterday, coming up one spot shy of the semi-finals. A top-three finish will be needed to advance.
Healy was frustrated to miss the automatic path to the semi-finals having faded in the final 50m yesterday. “I didn’t feel very good and then I tied up at the end which has now happened to me twice so I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” she said. “It’s really hard. I came into this in such great shape and I should have been able to do that comfortably and everything just felt really hard. It’s confusing, to be honest.”
O’Sullivan had little reason to look back with regret, having smashed her previous best to clock 4:00.23. “If you run the best you’ve ever run it’s great. You can’t not be grateful for that,” she said.
In the 400m repechages, Sharlene Mawdsley simply didn’t have enough down the home straight to secure qualification, finishing third in 51.18. Sophie Becker corrected the error she made in the heats by committing to the race on the crown of the final bend and it paid off as she finished second in 51.28, her second fastest time, but it wasn’t enough to advance.
