Adeleke storms to victory at National Championships
RHASIDAT Adeleke of Tallaght Athletic Club stormed to victory at the National Junior and Under 23 Championships in Tullamore on Saturday.
After qualifying through the heats of the Junior/Under 20 100m in first place with a time of 12.11 the 16-year-old sprinting sensation took her place in the final.
Rhasidat Adeleke of Tallaght AC on her way to winning the Junior 100m ahead of Patience Jumbo-Gula.
And blasting from the blocks, she stayed clear of the field to cross the line for the title with a time of 11.80 ahead of training partner Patience Jumbo-Gula (St Gerard’s Dundalk) who clocked 12.00 and bronze medallist Alannah McGuinness of Carrick-On-Shannon AC.
This followed up on Adeleke’s season’s best time of 23.89 for the 200m which she recorded in the Mannheim Gala Meet in which she was part of the Ireland Under 20 team.
There was no shortage of representation for Tallaght in the Under 23 Men’s 100m Final after three of the club’s athletes, Joseph Ojewumi, Eoin Doherty and Timmy Bada, came through their heats.
In a very close finish, Ojewumi was denied the title on the line by Mark Smyth of Raheny Shamrocks who clocked 10.74, just fractionally better than the 10.77 posted by his Tallaght rival who took silver ahead of Michael McAuley from Ballymena & Antrim.
Doherty finished fourth in 10.92 which was seven hundreds of a second quicker than his qualifying time of 10.97 while Bada clocked 11.02 for sixth.
In the Junior Men’s 400m, Christopher Duffy qualified for the final after he came home in a time of 50.86, but had to settle for seventh place in the final.
Prior to last weekend, Tallaght athletes fared well in a number of other outings including the recent Dublin Graded Meet Series held in Tallaght where Derek Kennedy won his 200m Grade C contest and Sarah Doyle finished third in her Grade A 200m.
In the 800m contests, Mustaffe Nasir finished sixth in his Grade A2 race while Brishan O’Brien emerged third from his Grade B1 contest and Cadan Clifford was runner-up in his Grade C event.
Elsewhere, Laura Mc Donnell recorded a new course record time of 17.50 as she was the first woman across the line in the Drogheda & District AC BD Midsummer 5k Race.
