Rhasidat qualifies for European Championships

Tallaght sprinter Rhasidat Adeleke has successfully qualified for the 200m at the European Championships following a victory in the National Championships held in Morton Stadium, Santry last Saturday.

After a rough 2025 and some subpar results for the start of 2026, the National Championships represented her last chance to meet the qualifying standard for this year’s Europeans with the qualification deadline being midnight last Sunday.

Adeleke was required to run a time of 22.85 or less in the 200m and after a solid race, her finish of 22.80 was enough to not only quality for the European Championships but also win a national title also.

Signs are extremely promising for Adeleke at the minute as she ran into a stiff -1.1 headwin suggesting that under more optimal conditions even faster times will be on the cards.

Adeleke spoke on overcoming the adversity and injuries that she has faced over the last year and a half.

“I didn’t really feel under pressure, or expectation, because I’m just trying to work with the cards I’ve been dealt with this year,” she said. “It’s new for me, this type of adversity.

‘I think throughout my career, I’ve been blessed to have a pretty seamless route to success.

“I almost let it consume me a little bit, and I think just having this difficulty and adversity has kind of brought me back to why I do it in the first place.

‘Because you have to analyse everything, when things like that happen.

‘And it just came back to figuring out who I am, why I do this, why I started it, and who I do it for. That’s really the main aspect of what’s putting me forward these next couple of months”

“So I wasn’t too focused on the times or what was going to happen when I crossed the line.

‘I just wanted to have fun. But I knew that if I can do it anywhere, it’s at home. So thank you to everyone who supported me.

‘I think there’s some times you’re in like a bad place and you kind of think the worst of yourself.

‘And you see the amount of people who are showing you love and support and it just lifts my spirits.”

“I got back from my most recent hamstring strain a week before Prefontaine [on July 4th], so it’s been about a month now since I’ve been able to draw on full speed.

‘For me, being able to build my training, and to compound it, is really important. And because I’ve had so many disruptions, I just wasn’t able to compound my training.

“Now it’s just about building and having racing under my legs.

‘That’s kind of what I’ve been missing this year, because I wasn’t able to race. We’ll see what happens over the next couple weeks, and if I can keep making progress.