Rhasidat Adeleke powered into the Women’s 400m semi-finals with ease this morning on day ten of Paris 2024.The 21-year-old produced a mature performance to take a comfortable victory in the final heat of the event clocking 50.09 seconds.
Speaking afterwards Adeleke was pleased with how she performed: “I feel like my first 200m was pretty calm. I didn’t go too aggressive. I went out at the right pace and I just kind of shut down in the last 100m. I didn’t want to use too much energy. I just wanted to do what I needed to do to qualify. It didn’t feel like a really hard run.”
She also reacted to the feeling of finally becoming an Olympian: “Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend what it really is because I guess I’ve been building up to this for so long. And sometimes it’s expected as a given and the way I am, I’m not happy to participate, I want to achieve my goals. My goal wasn’t just to come to the Olympics, my goal was to do something special. And that’s what my goal will remain.”
Elsewhere, Sharlene Mawdsley clocked the fastest time of her career, 50.71 seconds, to finish fourth in the penultimate heat. Despite missing out on automatic qualification to the semi-finals by four hundredths of a second the Tipperary star was delighted to perform to her best on the biggest stage.
Mawdsley said: “I’m happy. I think I really committed to the race which I hadn’t done really this year. I’m actually really proud of myself after that performance. Had I been in a different heat I would have qualified automatically, which is a bit annoying but we all know I love running so I have another round tomorrow to try and get into the semi-final,” Mawdsley said.
In the opening heat Wexford’s Sophie Becker finished sixth in 51.87 seconds, missing out on automatic qualification.
“It’s disappointing. I was hoping for a good bit faster than that. To make a semi, or run a PB, or both is obviously what I’d have liked to do. I’m happy with my first 250m – I ran that really well, I put myself in the mix, It’s definitely a learning curve for tomorrow.” ” Becker said.
Becker and Mawdsley will return to action in the repechages tomorrow morning. There will be four repechages with only the winner in each, and the top two fastest of the next best advancing to the semi-finals. Adeleke heads straight to the semi-finals on Wednesday evening.
