Like Rhasidat Adeleke, Ireland benefits from another speedster of Nigerian descent who's destined for global greatness

At Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Rhasidat Adeleke was one of the standout track stars, making online news headlines for her historic performances and physical attributes. Now, the Irish may have found another brewing sprinter of Nigerian descent in Israel Olatunde.

The 22-year-old Dublin sprinter lowered his Irish 100m record with a brilliant clocking of 10.12s (1.7m/s) to win at the NEB Open meeting in London on Sunday afternoon, bringing him closer to the sub-10s career.

With that, the budding speedster took a full .05 off his previous mark set two years ago, finishing ahead of Great Britain’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake with 10.14s and Stephen Baffour in 10.17s.

Olatunde's previous Irish record of 10.17s was set when finishing sixth at the 2022 European Championships final in Munich, which eclipsed Paul Hession’s mark of 10.18 that stood since 2007.

The Irish sprint sensation with Nigerian roots has been shattering records and turning heads with her blistering performances on the track and has emerged as one of the brightest young stars in world athletics over the past few years. 

Rhasidat Adeleke's athletics career got off the mark in 2017 aged 17 when she won a junior sprint double at the Irish Schools championship for Presentation College.

The 21-year-old was the first Irish woman to break the 50-seconds barrier in the 400m. She holds seven individual Irish national records 60m indoors, 100m outdoors, 200m indoors and outdoors, 300m indoors, and 400m indoors and outdoors. As part of relay teams, she contributed to setting two additional national records: the women's 4 × 400m relay and the mixed 4 × 400m relay.

At the Paris Olympics, Adeleke became the first Irish woman in history to qualify for an Olympic sprint final, where she sadly finished fourth in the women's 400m event in 49.29s.

Likewise, she played a vital role in the mixed 4x400m final running a fantastic split time of 48.92s as Ireland missed out on the women's 4x400m bronze medal in fourth position clocking a new National Record (NR) of 3.19.90. Team USA won gold in 3.15.37, the Netherlands silver in 3.19.50, and Great Britain bronze bronze in 3:19.72.