Exactly five weeks after her Olympic fourth place finish Rhasidat Adeleke will once more go to the 400m well in Friday’s Diamond League final in Brussels. Given she opened her outdoor season more than five months ago it’s understandable if things are starting to run a little dry.
The climax of a particularly long summer that included the European Championships in Rome and the Olympics in Paris, the Brussels Memorial Van Damme event is also the culmination of the 14 Diamond League meetings and spread over two nights inside the King Baudouin Stadium in the heart of the Belgian capital.
Adeleke duly qualified for a place in Friday’s 400m final (7.04pm Irish time) by virtue of several Diamond League appearances over the summer, including a victory in Monaco back on July 12th, where the Dublin sprinter ran 49.17 seconds. She hasn’t run faster since.
The Brussels line-up includes five of the eight finalists from that Olympic final in the Stade de France back on August 9th, including Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic and Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser, who won gold and silver respectively.
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The notable absentee is Natalia Kaczmarek from Poland, who edged Adeleke out of the Olympic bronze medal, and has called time on her similarly long season, which also saw her win the European title in Rome, where Adeleke won silver in her national record of 49.07.
All three medal Olympic winners also went to the line at the Silesia Diamond League meeting in Poland two weeks after Paris, finishing in the same podium order, with Adeleke again finishing fourth in 50 seconds flat.
She’s since returned to her base in Texas for one last training block under coach Edrick Floréal before Brussels – and celebrated her 22nd birthday on August 29th – and has spoken about her intention to get one more valuable run before her season is done.
“Experience is a huge factor in being a good 400m runner,” she said, “because you’ll need to know how to run, which style, where you’re positioned, your competition, and they are some of the things we are trying to figure out.
“I guess that’s something all the girls who’re competing at their best now have done, when they were up and coming athletes. So we’re in that phase now and I feel like this is my second year training for the 400m, so I definitely do need that experience going forward.”
In Silesia, Adeleke went out significantly faster, tearing around the opening 100m in 11.80 seconds in lane seven to take a lead on Paulino and Naser, before they reeled her in down the homestretch, with Kaczmarek passing her just before the line.
Paulino is unbeaten in her nine 400m races this year, winning gold in Paris in 48.17, and with that the 27-year-old took down the 48.25 Olympic record set by the Marie-José Pérec back in 1996.
Naser won silver in 48.53, her fastest time since returning from a two-year doping ban in 2021, and she’s still competing despite the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) imposing a 12-month ban on the Bahrain Athletics Association (BAA) for “serious anti-doping rule violations” and “historical breaches of the World Athletics anti-doping rules” just eight months before the Paris Olympics.
Luckily for Naser, the Diamond League is not part of the World Athletics Series events, and while Adeleke can certainly challenge for a podium place in Brussels (the top prize in each event is $30,000), Paulino and Naser will probably have a little more in reserve to take the two top spots. Adeleke has been racing outdoors since being part of the University of Texas quartet that set a new world best in the 4x200m back on March 30th.
One athlete Adeleke won’t have to worry about in Brussels is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the Olympic champion and world record holder in the 400m hurdles from the US, who had hoped to attempt a 200m-400m double this weekend.
Turns out McLaughlin-Levrone wasn’t eligible for any wild card entry, given she had not raced any Diamond league meetings this year, so will instead contest two separate invitational races, against lessor opposition for sure, although after she ran 50.37 to win 400m hurdles gold in Paris, her time over 400m flat is eagerly anticipated.
The Brussels event, now in its 48th year, in all features 82 medal winners from Paris, including gold medal winners Letsile Tebogo (200m), Jakob Ingebrigtsen (5,000m) and Adeleke’s training partner Julien Alfred (100m).
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