Something felt dramatically different when Bori Akinola arrived for training at UCD last Saturday. There was still an extra bounce in his stride from the week before, when Akinola became Ireland’s fastest man indoors, and straight away the mood was upbeat.
The track was still drenched in parts, but it wasn’t raining – for the first time this year.
“Honestly, we hadn’t had a dry day of training so far this year,” he says. “We’ll still be there, even in the pouring rain and the cold. But it just wasn’t raining as bad.”
Akinola has always had a sunny disposition, which is a good thing, because most world-class sprinters wouldn’t last five minutes in the winter rain he’s been experiencing. He also trains indoors twice a week, at the Sport Ireland Arena, but his results of recent weeks pay homage to the notion there is no such thing as bad weather, only weak athletes.
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“It’s been great,” he says, his 6.54 seconds clocked in Belgrade smashing the Irish indoor 60m record of 6.57 set by Israel Olatunde in 2023. “Crossing the line, it was a bit bittersweet, because I came second in the race. But then I was like, ‘that’s a national record’. Nothing to be mad about there, it was amazing.”
At 24, Akinola is nine months older than Olatunde, who has been setting the pace on Irish sprinting records since 2024. But Akinola is a latecomer to the sport in comparison, only starting in athletics in 2018.
For a split second last August, he also thought he may have eclipsed Olatunde’s outdoor 100m record, when Akinola stopped the clock at 10.10 seconds in London. Then the wind-reading showed +2.9 m/s, above the legal +2.0. A week later, Olatunde clocked 10.08, with a wind-reading of +2.0 exactly.
“I saw 10.10, I was like, ‘Please God, I hope that was legal’. There was definitely a tail wind, I just didn’t know how much it was. It was still a good time, I was happy. A few races that I’ve done, I can tell from the first two, three steps. Just setting up the race really well, going through the phases really well.”
He credits his coach at UCD, Adam McMullan, for maintaining his progress after graduating in engineering. Akinola also balances his training while working full-time with Output Sports. And weather aside, he is not thinking of moving abroad. Olatunde has spent the last two years in Florida.
After losing to Olatunde in 21 consecutive races, Akinola beat him to last year’s National Indoor 60m title, before adding his first outdoor 100m title last August. His 6.54 seconds also qualified him for next month’s World Indoor Championships in Poland, his target for now being to defend his Irish indoor title on Sunday.
“I feel I’m still catching up, there’s still a lot more speed to develop. And as long as I keep going like that, running under 10 seconds, it could happen this summer. It’s not outside the realms of possibility at all.”
− Virgin Media have live coverage of the National Indoor Championships from 2.30-4.30pm on Sunday. Spectator tickets for Sunday are sold out, with limited availability for Saturday.
