Rhasidat Adeleke: the next big 400m star?

She has the talent, hopefully not peaking too early.!

As an aside, she's drop dead gorgeous and would love to see her, Mu and perhaps Bol cast as Amazonians in a wonder woman movie.

The 400m in Paris could be generational: Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Marileidy Paulino, Natalia Kaczmarek, Lieke Klaver, Rhasidat Adeleke, Sada Williams, Salwa Eid-Naser, Alexis Holmes, possibly Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone?

Anyone who can split 48.45 has a shot to win gold.

Sydney won't run the 400 at the Olympics this year. She's not in good enough shape. She took off too much time this winter and she is now behind and playing catch up.

This is a bizarre assumption to make. You know absolutely nothing about what she did this year and how much she trained.

Not to mention, she started her season with strong results in the 100H/200. Adeleke is assuredly now in the medal mix though. I think she’ll get past the Sada Williams/Kascmarek/Klaver tier pretty easily. So you’re looking at Paulino, Sydney, Miller-Uibo and then Wilson (health), Naser (everything) are wild cards

She took a lot of time off this winter to do a book tour. She is definitely not in as good of shape as she was this time in 2022 and 2023.

The only medal Ireland has in the sprints at the Olympics is a Gold in the 1932 400m Hurdles from Bob Tisdall. So it would be pretty historic if she even gets a medal. (That was won in a time that Femke/Sydney could run in their sleep nowadays. :p)

She has an immense amount of natural athletic ability, more than any other female runner from Europe. Last year I thought they gave her too much of a break after NCAAs. Adeleke only ran one 400 in nearly 2.5 months between the NCAA final and Budapest. Tough to match the sharpness and competitive edge of the other women with that type of lull.

She was struggling with Klaver during that stretch. That was the huge tipoff to me that Adeleke wasn't right. They basically dead heated in a Diamond League meet and in the Budapest final Adeleke beat Klaver by only two tenths even though Klaver ran a terrible race, going out much too fast. Adeleke at her best should have defeated Klaver by at least .5 if not a full second, as we saw yesterday.

IMO, Sydney would be a fool to pick 400 flat in Paris. Why risk the likes of Miller-Uibo, Paulino and Adeleke in your secondary event when you've got a decisive advantage over the only real threat in your primary event?

There is no way that Kersee is having Sydney run the 100H just so that Sydney can only do the 400 flat at the Olympics.

Sydney will either be running the 400H only, or running the 400H and 400 double. But I don't think she will be able to win gold in the 400 flat at this year's Olympics. So even if Sydney does the double at the Trials, I think she will end up only doing the 400H at the Olympics.

Bol is too plain looking and boyish. Find someone else.

Why you think Syd would run the 100MH? Because she opened with it? Do you know in 2022 she ran 60MH hurdles and also ran the 100MH at Penn Relays one year? Is it a possibility, I dunno... that she runs these events to fine tune her hurdling technique?

didn't miller-uibo say she was done with the 400M? What... the 200M or the multi too competitive now?

Rhasidat traveled from Texas to Ireland for her national championships (where she didn't compete), back to her base in Texas then to Budapest last summer. Hopefully she sorts that bit out this year to keep fresh in Europe.

You know she did a book tour. You don't know that she took time off to do it. The great thing about this sport is that you can train for it anywhere where there is a track.

Like, this is sport is her professional job. It's not like she was signing books and doing interviews for 14 hours a day. There is more than enough time in a day to get a workout in during the evening or morning.

She said she'd try the Heptathlon in 2025 or the next off-year. I believe as of last season she was teetering between the 200 and 400 and decided to defend her title at both Worlds and Olympics before giving it up. So we may expect a new event next year. That is, unless she does something generational and decides she should extend her 400 legacy and doesn't hate the training enough to dip.

Shes an Amazonian! Klaver then as a Wonder woman extra? Slightly slower but looks like she could seriously hurt people.

P.s. not engaging with any Bol negativity.. she's awesome and has a spot in my movie. You make your own line up.

Bol wins because she has a voice fit for a Disney cartoon. After she has retired from track she must do voiceover work for Disney?

Let's see how Adeleke progresses through the season. 10.8/ 48.5r is extremely fast any time of year, but 48.5 suggests she could already be in 49.2/49.3 form. Scary good for early May. is she going to be able to improve come Paris, which is over 3 months away?

There's no question she has immense talent. It's down to experience and coaching & mentality. Her NCAA form was amazing last season, but she was nowhere near the 49.2 she ran in June come Budapest.

She's a pro now, but has run 8 outdoor races already and it's only May 7th. I would rather have seen her open later than April, but I get that she's based in the US and so has taken advantage of the meetings available there. But she doesn't need to peak for a US Champs in June like others competing a lot right now....I just hope her coach has the right programme for her.

The potential is there for her to be amazing. She has the height of a Miler-Uibo, Bol, & Klaver, but has yet to have the stride length her body suggests it could. If she can open up her stride like SMU & Bol, she is going to be even faster.