Top Tallaght-based athletes looking to pick up the pieces of a decimated season
SOME of the country’s top athletes who train out of Tallaght Athletic Club are hoping to pick up the pieces of a domestic and international athletic season that has decimated by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The club’s own Rhasidat Adeleke, Joseph Ojewumi, Eoin Doherty, Simon Essuman and Timmy Bada together with Patience Jumbo Gula, Kate Doherty and Israel Olatunde are all looking to salvage something from their respective 2020 programmes.
Simon Essuman, Patience Jumbo-Gula, Timmy Bada, Rhasidat Adeleke, Joseph Ojewumi, Kate Doherty and Eoin Doherty are all hoping to salvage some big competition from what has been a decimated year
The group which had to cancel a warm weather training camp scheduled to take place in Malta from April 8-15, was gearing up for some major competition in Ireland and abroad.
Adeleke is still targeting 100m and 200m events at the World Under 20 Championships in Nairobi Kenya which have been postponed from its original date in July.
In what had been her fastest ever start to a new season, she has met the criteria for selection for the 200m, running inside the required standard on no less than three occasions at indoor meets this year.
The double European Youth Olympic sprint champion, is also a member of the Women’s 4×1 squad that is currently ranked 24th and targeting a top 16 World seeding and Olympic spot.
Also in the team’s crosshairs is a top 16 European ranking and a place at the European Championships in Paris in August for which no decision has yet been made.
Ranked third in Europe for the 60m at Under 20 and 11th over 200m, Adeleke might well have been seeded higher had it not been for the cancellation of certain meets like the National Juvenile Indoor Championships.
The Tallaght woman is also targeting the Mannheim Junior Gala in Germany and the Irish Senior Schools Championships in May, but serious doubt hangs over those meets.
Jumbo-Gula is another who is hoping to line out in the World Under 20 Championships over 100m.
And, like Adeleke, she is a member of the Ireland Women’s 4×1 squad that has European and Olympic aspirations.
The Mannheim Junior Gala in Germany, T-Meeting in Netherlands and AthletiCAGenève Memorial Georges Caillat in Switzerland are all part of her programme as were the National Under 20 and Senior Championships over which uncertainly looms.
Both Joseph Ojewumi and Israel Olatunde are members of the Men’s 4×1 squad targeting a top 16 European ranking, and a place at the European Championships in Paris with both have inter-national programme hopes similar to Jumbo-Gula.
Israel Olatunde, is a 100m specialist with his eye also on the World Under 20s, while, domestically, Ojewumi will be hoping to run in the National Under 23 and Senior Championships.
At the latter Ojewumi, together with clubmates Eoin Doherty, Essuman and Bada, is also targeting a third National Senior 4x100m title in succession.
European Championship action is also the hope of 100m Hurdle specialist Kate Doherty and, for this, a PB would be required
Also eyeing up events like the T-Meeting in Netherlands and AthletiCAGenève and Memorial Georges Caillat in Switzerland she is hoping to land a National Senior title just like Eoin Doherty.
He, Essuman and Bada are also aiming to travel to the Netherlands for the T-Meeting.
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