Rhasidat pinpoints areas of improvement for next year
Tallaght AC athlete Rhasidat Adeleke has enjoyed a whirlwind 2024.
Becoming an Olympian in Paris is sure to be one of the highlights as she narrowly missed out on a medal on two occasions, in the women’s 4x400m relay and the women’s 400m, the latter of which she finished just 0.3 seconds from a medal placing.
The European Championships in Rome brought gold as the Dubliner was part of the winning Irish 4×400 mixed relay team in Rome, and also clinched silver in both the 400m and Women’s 4×400 relay.
Records were broken too as Adeleke smashed Irish records over 60m, 200m and 300m indoors, and over 100m and 400m outdoors during the year.
Multiple medal placings during the Diamond League season, including a third-place finish in the final race rounded out an incredible 2024 season.
Despite the tremendous success, Adeleke remains eager to improve in 2025.
“I might try you know some different events, I might do a 400 meters, I’m not sure. My coach hasn’t decided yet but I probably would be, I don’t think I’d come to Europe or anything for any of the races, probably be more, maybe one or two, if I do any at all. If I do one or two in America and I hope maybe it’s just kind of sweet and short.”
The 22-year-old has already pinpointed areas of improvement for 2025 as she looks to build on this year.
“I think strength was definitely one of my weaknesses”, Adeleke responded when asked how she can improve.
“I think because of the way we set out to maybe change things a little bit when it comes to my training so I was doing a lot more of the short spin training and that initially didn’t necessarily work out with the strength part when I came to my 400 meters because in 2023 you know I ran my race very differently.
“I’d more so close at the end instead of kind of tiring up. So yeah that’s definitely something we’re working on this year and hopefully in 2025 we’ll see together with some stuff.”
“It was things like posture and tightnesses in certain areas and strengthening work in my physique and not necessarily the training also.
“So it was a bunch of different things that you know I’m fixing with my training but also like in the weight room and with mobility and you know prehab things like that just a little one percentage that you don’t think matter but they do matter a lot so it’s a lot of those things.”
