By the time Rhasidat Adeleke saw Talitha Diggs coming it was too late as the Irish runner lost out in a mad dash finish to the seldom raced 300 metres at the Millrose Games in New York on Sunday.
Over the one-and-a-half laps of the Armory indoor track, Adeleke was in front until the last turn. At that point Diggs edged past on the lane inside her and held on until the line, the US athlete winning in 36.21 seconds, her lifetime best.
Adeleke was awarded with yet another Irish record, her 36.42 improving her own mark of 36.87 set two years ago. It was her third record of the season already, although the look of disappointment on her race reflected perhaps the sense she may have misjudged her effort.
Both 400m specialists. Diggs is well known to her too, winning the NCAA title the year before Adeleke won last year. Diggs also made the 400m final of the World Championships in Budapest last summer, finishing eighth, when Adeleke finished fourth.
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After improving her Irish 60m and 200m records, Adeleke is now likely to bypass the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow and start turning her attention towards the outdoor season.
In the famed Wanamaker Mile, Yared Nuguse ran the second fastest indoor time in history, winning in 3:47.83 to take the American record too, with Andrew Coscoran finishing outside of four minutes, back in 12th in 4:01.69
On a night of two world records, Britain’s Josh Kerr lowered the two-mile mark to 8:00.67, after Devynne Charlton from the Bahamas improved the 60m hurdles mark to 7.67 seconds. There was an Irish record, too, for Róisín Flanagan in the two-mile, running 9:36.70, behind Laura Muir’s British record of 9:04.84. Mark English also snatched third in the 800m, running 1:46.61.
Sarah Healy enjoyed another major breakthrough on Saturday night, setting a new Irish indoor mark in the 1,500m in running 4.03.83 at the World Indoor Tour Gold meet in Lievin, France.
The Dublin athlete finished fifth on the night, taking over two seconds off the previous record held by Ciara Mageean since January 2020. The race was won by Freweyni Hailu of Ethiopia in 3:57.24. Her latest record comes just one week after she broke Mary Cullen’s national senior indoor record over 3,000m when clocking 8:36.06 in Metz.
Healy, who turns 23 on Tuesday, has already qualified for the Olympics after she broke four minutes for the first time last summer, running 3:59.68 in Budapest.
