Adeleke ruling nothing in or out in hunt for coveted gold
Earlier this week in Budapest, US shot put star Ryan Crouser stood before the media and explained how he managed to unleash a monster throw in the final round to win a second world title.
“I tell the athletes I coach: ‘You can make a mistake in a meet, just don’t make the same mistake twice.’ I made a mistake in each of the first five rounds, but I didn’t make the same one twice, so by the sixth round, I had as close to a perfect throw as I’ve ever had.”
As Rhasidat Adeleke heads into her first world final tonight, a similar sentiment will be reverberating in her mind. In both her heat and semi-final, she made the same mistake, coasting through the opening half at what is, for her, a pedestrian pace.
Her class got her out of trouble both times, Adeleke cruising to victory in her heat in 50.80 and finishing second in her semi-final in 49.87. In the semi, she went through 200m in 24.20, which any sprint coach will tell you is sub-optimal, probably a half-second too slow, for an athlete of her ability.
“I was probably just too comfortable, but I’ll fix it for the final,” she said. “There’ll be a tweak. I had a lot of energy at the end. It’s really just distributing it properly.”
Adeleke goes into the final ranked fifth, drawn in lane four, with the chief medal contenders in the lanes outside her. That’s likely a good thing, particularly given Dutch athlete Lieke Klaver is the first one she’ll see when she rises from the blocks.
Klaver rockets through the opening half and Adeleke, being the competitor she is, will likely be pulled with her.
Adeleke cut an impatient, slightly uneasy figure after her semi-final on Monday, perhaps because she’d been beaten to the line by Marileidy Paulino – the Olympic and world silver medallist – or perhaps because she was keen to escape the glare of the media spotlight a lot faster this time, having spent 50 minutes politely answering every question after her heat.
Her coach, Edrick Floreal, has been telling her the same thing ahead of races since she switched to the 400m last year: get out fast. Commit.
What result can she get? With Adeleke, it’s best to rule nothing in or out, such is her astonishing ability.
“I don't want put too much pressure,” she says. “I know what I can do. And I'm really, really grateful I'm able to do what I love.”
Still, there’s no getting away from the fact only one athlete, Paulino, has run faster than the 49.20 she ran to win the NCAA title in June. But world bronze medallist Sada Williams and Natalia Kaczmarek both look capable of running in the low-49s.
The path to beating them starts with getting out hard. It might work. It might not. But don’t expect Adeleke to walk away wondering. When the gun sounds, expect her to unleash hell.
As she puts it: “It’s anyone’s medal.”
