Final-bound Rhasidat Adeleke must find the necessary answers ...

But the key thing is this: she’s in.

Now, crucially, she has 48 hours to fix whatever was amiss in the semi-final and make no mistake: for all that her achievement in reaching an Olympic final is a seismic one for Irish athletics, it was clear something was not right. 

This was a below-par run, and it’d be an insult to her ability to suggest otherwise.

“That was just very messy, a very messy race,” she told RTÉ. “I’m just really excited that I’m able to get into the final and fix everything I did there.” 

This was not what she wanted, that’s for sure, but it was what she needed – Adeleke holding on for the second automatic qualifying spot as she was overcome with a tidal wave of fatigue, her time helping her avoid the worst two inner lanes in the final. 

Instead, she will line up in lane four, the big contenders in the lanes outside her. She will see them throughout the final and know exactly what she needs to do.

That wasn’t the case for much of the Wednesday night's race. Drawn in lane eight, her two chief rivals in the lanes inside, Adeleke got off to a strong start, just as she did in her heat, and was swiftly closing down the stagger on Jamaica’s Junelle Bromfield in the lane outside as she entered the back straight.

She soon passed Bromfield and hit 200m in second, splitting 23.22, with Naser splitting 23.00. 

Naser appeared alongside Adeleke seconds later and the Dubliner started to tighten up. 

“I think I panicked a little bit which made me break form really early,” she said.

She was just two metres adrift of Naser as they turned for home but when she searched for something extra to bring her up alongside the 2019 world champion, there was nothing there. 

The harder she tried, the more she slowed, her form increasingly ragged in the home straight, her 14.51-second final 100m telling the story of an athlete rigging hard. 

The 400m can do that sometimes. It did it to Adeleke.

Meanwhile, Naser, who served a two-year ban between 2021 and 2023 for missing drug tests, looked to have again rediscovered the keys to her best form – the 26-year-old blasting through the last 100m and hitting the line well ahead in 49.08, her quickest time by a whopping 0.7 since she returned to the sport last year.

Adeleke said that the re-start of the race, due to Lieke Klaver initially not hearing the set command, had unsettled her a little. 

“The first one he held us really long and I was ready to go then but when we went again, I feel like I was thinking about it too much and I didn’t execute my first 200 like I should have,” she said. 

“But that’s all things that can be fixed for the final.” 

Adeleke becomes the first Irish athlete ever to make an Olympic final in a flat sprint event and the first Irishwoman ever to reach an Olympic sprint final – breakthroughs that are seismic for Irish sprinting, and Irish athletics. 

Droves of Irish fans had made the journey to Paris and they let Adeleke hear their support when she was introduced.

“It was unreal again,” she said. “When I got into the blocks I was like, ‘let’s do this,’ and hopefully it’s going to be the same again for the final. I’m just so grateful to everyone. It means so much.’” 

Adeleke had to receive medical attention after the race and did not complete the full mixed zone, with a spokesperson for the Irish team saying there was no specific reason other than fatigue.

The final takes place at 7pm Irish time on Friday and Adeleke will have to produce something significantly faster if she is to win Ireland’s first Olympic track medal since Sonia O’Sullivan at the Sydney Games in 2000 and the first athletics medal since Rob Heffernan’s race walk bronze in London 2012.

There are always shocks at the Olympics, and one of the big 400m favourites – world leader Nickisha Pryce of Jamaica – crashed out in the next semi-final, finishing fourth in 50.77. 

World champion Marileidy Paulino underlined her status as favourite with a masterclass performance, easing down to clock 49.21, while in the third semi-final European champion, Natalia Kaczmarek of Poland edged Britain’s Amber Anning, 49.45 to 49.47.

It might not take sub-49 to win a medal after all, but it will take something close to 49 flat. 

Adeleke is fully capable if all is well – she’s done it multiple times this summer alone. But right now there’s a question left hanging. It won’t be answered until Friday night.