With the Olympics athletics programme getting underway this morning, there is likely to be a huge amount of interest in the exploits of Rhasidat Adeleke over the coming days.
It has been a long time since Ireland boasted a genuine superstar athlete in track and field, and even longer since we had one in sprinting.
At 21-years old, Adeleke enters these games shouldering a huge amount of expectation. She will be expected to compete for a medal in the 400m, while there is also the matter of the 4x400m relays to contend with.
It has been reported that the Dubliner will miss this weekend's mixed relay, the event in which many would have seen Ireland as genuine medal contenders had she taken part. However, she is set to skip that race in order to fully focus on next week's individual event.
It remains to be seen if Rhasidat Adeleke will compete in the women's relay towards the end of the Olympics.
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O'Sullivan Analyses Rhasidat Adeleke Decision To Skip Mixed Relay
It will be a pity to see the mixed relay team compete without Rhasidat Adeleke this weekend, although her decision is completely understandable.
The opportunity to win an individual medal at the Olympics is one that only comes around every four years, meaning she will want to maximise her chances in that event. Her coach has been incredibly careful in selecting her training regime in recent months, with everything geared towards the 400m event at these games.
In fact, that training regimen probably meant that she had no need to compete in the relay ahead of the individual event.
Speaking on RTÉ, Sonia O'Sullivan explained why Rhasidat Adekele, in particular, would have seen little benefit from competing in the relay.
Paris 2024: Sonia O'Sullivan and Dervla O'Rourke both believe that Rhasidat Adeleke should prioritise her individual events over helping the Ireland relay teams through their heats.#RTESport #Paris2024
📺Watch https://t.co/iUQJmJIhT6
📱Updates https://t.co/18WgncFAEe pic.twitter.com/Oz1ZSNkH5t— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 2, 2024
Different decisions will be made when it comes to the Olympics. We have to look at this one race at a time.
The mixed relay is one thing, the women's relay is at the very end of the programme. Traditionally, that is just a bonus for athletes, it's an extra fun thing for them to do.
The mixed relay is a new event, it's brought in at the start of the programme. You will see that most of the best athletes in the individual events won't run that. The only one who probably will is Femke Bol (Netherlands), because she's doing the hurdles.
A lot of the athletes haven't run a race for two weeks. They can use these extra races if they need to have a test run or get a run on the track, if it fits in with their programme.
That will suit some athletes more than others. For people like Rhasidat, she has a particularly good training group. I'm sure she's down there training with Dina Asher-Smith and Julien Alfred, they can test each other and they can run stuff like that.
Some athletes really need a race and will want to run the races. If you're not that type of athlete, then you can just turn up to the heats and semi-final and use them as your preparation races.
They don't need those extra relay races at the start. They will be used to give other athletes an opportunity to race. Lots of countries will have a much greater depth of athletes to choose from than we would have.
That makes a lot of sense.
While it would have been brilliant to see Rhasidate Adekele compete in the mixed relay, her decision not to do so is completely understandable.
Here's hoping that it puts them her in a strong position to claim a medal in the individual event.
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