After waiting over a week since the opening ceremony, the highly anticipated Olympic debut of Rhasidat Adeleke couldn't have gone any better in Paris on Monday morning.
The Texas-based runner won her heat with ease in a time of 50.09 seconds and she finished the race in a stroll, showing she clearly had more in the tank.
It's an immensely positive sign for Adeleke's medal hopes as she will hopefully go even quicker in her semifinal on Wednesday.
It was a fairly impressive start for the 21-year old and in the RTÉ studio Olympic bronze medalist Rob Heffernan was quick to sing her praises and how her performance went perfectly according to plan.
She delivered in what she's meant to do in the first round, she needs to come through it, seamless, she’s a class apart.
She’s all the boxes ticked up to this point so it’s not going to be a surprise that she’s this strong in the 400.
She actually went out really strong because the American girl [Alexis Holmes] has still run 49.7 [previously] so she’s a class athlete so I think Rhasidat went out and buried whatever doubt she had early in the race.
Fellow former Olympian Derval O'Rourke also was impressed with Rhasidat Adeleke and highlighted her wisely looking around at her competitors as she eased up in her finish to assure victory.
The game plan to me looks like she went through the first 200 almost at a race pace, practicing that race pace, that judgement and then once she hit 150 to go, it’s just about being efficient, starting to just cruise it down, really relaxed in the last 100.
Even the wherewithal to look around...she 21, she’s going into this with a chance of a medal but she’s smart enough to know how deep this field is. She didn’t put a foot wrong and made it look easy.
"She ticked all the boxes and made it look easy" Derval O'Rourke and Rob Heffernan were hugely impressed by Rhasidat Adeleke's performance in winning her 400m heat and advancing to the semis
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There's a lot of pressure on Rhasidat Adeleke to perform after her form in recent years over in America but so far it looks like she's relishing in it.
