Ireland 400m record holder Rhasidat Adeleke has warned her rivals that she is only getting starting in the event, as she continues to set new standards each time she takes to the track.
The 20-year-old Irish woman has been breaking both the indoor and outdoor national records with regularity, her latest landmark run coming as she won the NCAA Big 12 Conference final in Lubbock, Texas in a time of 50.33 seconds last weekend.
Representing the University of Texas, where she studies corporate communications, Adeleke passed through 200 metres of the indoor track in a 23.62 seconds before powering on to and set a new NCAA record.
Adeleke's performances are all the more impressive when you consider that she has only been properly competing at the 400m distance since October.
Under the tutelage of coach Edrick Floréal, Adeleke has switched her focus from the 60m and 200m distances and while she admits that she’s still learning to run at 400m, she is excited by just how she could go in the event.
"I definitely feel like I still have a long way to in it," she said. "I’m still learning about the training and competition side of things.
"I was saying to my team-mates yesterday, they were telling me how they feel after running a 400m and they were saying 'oh yeah after running the 400m I can’t walk, I’m so tired’, and I was saying to them I never feel like that.
"Maybe that comes down to me not knowing my limits yet. Most people who have been running the event for years, they know what their pace is, they can strategise and say; ‘ok If I go out this fast, I’ll able to finish up this fast because this is usually how fast I finish’.
"I’m still not familiar with what my limits are so I might go out a little bit slow, I might go out a bit slower than I actually can and that’s definitely something I’m working on, to be able to understand my body and understand how fast I can go without tensing up too much.
"I definitely do think I have a long way to go. I can see it with the training, I just started the training in October and it’s definitely been hard but I feel like I’m getting better, I’m getting stronger and I’m really excited to see what I can do in the future."
While Adekele confirmed that she will still run at 100m and 200m, she confirmed that the 400m will be her main focus from now on.
When asked if the 400m is her main event now, she replied: "It probably is. When it gets to outdoors, I'm going dabble around in the 100m and 200m a bit more.
"After I ran at the European Championships last year in Germany, I ran 50.5, a new national record. I kind of ran that off my short sprints training that I'd done from the NCAA season. I just kind of held all that strength on.
"To have been able to achieve that only doing short spring training, and not having the endurance a long sprinter would have kind of made me open my eyes.
"It made me feel like if I did train for the 400m I'd have so much more strength and I could do more in the event.
"That's what kind of prompted me to start training for it this season. I guess it's evident that being able to adjust to that new strength training has been able to kind of transfer to my 400m open."
Up next for Adeleke is the prestigious NCAA Indoor Championships and a likely showdown with American runner Taitha Diggs.
When Adeleke broke the five-year-old NCAA record last weekend, it stood for less than two hours as Diggs ran a time of 50.15 in an event at Arkansas, going .18 of a second faster than her Irish rival.
The two look set to clash in for Albuquerque the Indoor Championships next weekend and while Adeleke admits that she doesn't have as much experience as Diggs, she’s looking forward to testing herself against the American runner.
"She’s good, I think she’s been doing the 400m since she was about 12 so she has a lot of experience in the event," Adeleke said.
"I don’t necessarily see one person as my main rival because at the end of the day anyone can have a great day and perform so I kind of just try to focus on myself if anything and focus on what I can do. I can’t control anyone else, I can only control what I do.
"That’s why I’m making sure that I’m trying as hard as I have been, staying focused up and just ready to give my all when we do compete against each other.
"[My aim] is just to make progress and hopefully to be able to come away with the win would be amazing. I'm just looking forward to it.
"The NCAA is like the World Championships for all the best collegiate athletes in the US. The level here in the collegiate system is very, very high.
"I saw a tweet yesterday, and it was like it's harder to qualify for the NCAA Championships than it is for the World Championships indoors because they only take the top 16 in the country in each event.
"Anyone in America will know how important it is to win an NCAA title. It's something a lot of companies, brands look at. If you're trying to go pro, it's definitely one of the competitions that they're looking at. It's gives birth to a lot of stars."
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