Irish sprinting received another welcome injection of pace with Sean Aigboboh breaking the Irish 200 metres record which had stood to Paul Hession for the last 19 years.
Aigboboh is in his first year at the University of Houston, where the head coach is nine-time Olympic medal winner Carl Lewis, and the Dublin sprinter clocked 20.27 seconds on the Houston track, inside the previous Irish record of 20.30 set by Hession back in 2007. The wind reading for Aigboboh’s winning time was +2.0m/s, right on the legal limit.
The 20-year-old Aigboboh has only started racing the 200m this season, specialising on the 100m in his schoolboy days in Dublin, where he was coached at Tallaght AC by Daniel Kilgallon. His time at the Cameron Burrell Invitational is also the sixth-fastest in the history of the University of Houston, which Lewis also attended in his college days, and currently ranks him second on the NCAA list for 2026.
Last weekend, Aigboboh improved his 100m best to 10.27 at the Penn Relays, and he’s qualified for both events for the European Championships in Birmingham in August.
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At the Botswana Golden Grand Prix meeting last Sunday, Benji Richardson won the 200m in 20.25, also inside the Irish record of 20.30, although Athletics Ireland have yet to decide if his times will count as national marks for record purposes.
Richardson had his transfer of allegiance from South Africa to Ireland ratified in November, although he doesn’t become eligible to represent Ireland on the international stage until August 2027. Richardson has a 100m best of 9.86, and a 200m best of 19.99.
Rhasidat Adeleke also had her first individual outdoor race of the season at the Texas Invitational in Austin, where she clocked 22.86 for the 200m (wind +0.8m/s), well short of her Irish record of 22.34 which was set in 2023. Adeleke will also race the 100m in Texas this weekend, before lining up in a world-class 400m at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting on May 16th.
