Rhasidat Adeleke on life in the spotlight: ‘How do people like Beyoncé handle this? This is crazy!'
She's still only 22. It's easy to forget that about
Rhasidat Adeleke
. Fourth at the
Olympics
, fourth at the
World Championships
, silver medal at the Europeans. Relay medals a-go-go, more Irish records than anybody in the sport. And she's still only 22.
Sometimes, she forgets herself. Like when she was at home last October and decided one day to go to Dundrum Town Centre with her friends. That's what you do, isn't it? You haven't been home in a while and you've just had the biggest summer of your life. So you go and hang with your girls, you laugh and shop and gossip and let your other world blur out of focus for a bit.
Except, when you're Adeleke, your other world doesn't be long surrounding you. Walking around Dundrum that day, she was hit up for selfies and signatures at every turn. In her innocence, she hadn't expected it to happen. It wasn't unpleasant or anything. Just a surprise, somehow.
'I was stopped by like 50 people and had a bunch of people around me asking for pictures and autographs and stuff,' she says. 'It's insane because I just went to Dundrum as I normally would. But I almost forget that I have, I guess, some sort of presence now. It's really cool. It honestly is really cool.
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'In comparison, being out here in Austin, Texas, where I can just walk around freely, nobody really knows who I am. So it kind of makes me forget that I do have that presence back home. But yeah, it's a blessing.'
Well, yes, up to a point. But you're allowed to be 22, as well. You're allowed to have a day with your friends that is yours and theirs and yours and theirs alone. You're allowed to feel a little uncomfortable if that small and infrequent experience gets eroded by the love bombing of the general public.
'Honestly, I have a different viewpoint on that,' she says. 'Okay, it sometimes depends on what mood I'm in. But usually, I don't have a problem with it because I just want to appreciate it. I don't want to ever seem like I'm ungrateful, even though having an opposing view wouldn't necessarily mean that I'm ungrateful.
Rhasidat Adeleke in the Diamond League women's 400m at Slaski Stadium in Chorzow, Poland in in August 2024. Photograph: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
'But if someone wants a picture with me or an autograph, then they appreciate what I do. And I'm like, the least I can do to give back to them for supporting me is to give them an autograph or to take a picture with them because it doesn't cost me anything.
'Sometimes it definitely can be overwhelming. I think the most overwhelmed I felt was at the national championships in Santry last year. That was insane. I was like, 'How do people like Beyoncé handle this? This is crazy!'
'They were telling us that it was the highest turnout they've ever had at nationals. And it was so unreal to break the 100m record at it. That was the last national record I was going for and to do it in front of a home crowd that big – it was a top-three moment in my life.'
Adeleke is talking via a video call organised through her partnership with Celsius, the energy drink. Having turned professional in the summer of 2023, she is still picking her way through a world in which she is both a sprinter and a business.
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Rhasidat Adeleke takes second spot in Diamond League 200m with storming finish
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Prize money on the track circuit is decent without being amazing – her second place in the Diamond League a fortnight ago in Shanghai was worth $6,000 (€5,355). Not bad for 22.72 seconds' work, but she won't run in the Diamond League again until the end of June. So by necessity, the life comes with endorsements as an anchor tenant. How does she choose which ones to lend her name to and which to send back?
'Authenticity is number one,' she says. 'I would never work with a brand that I wouldn't personally use or a drink that I wouldn't drink. I just think it just does me a disservice and I want to make sure I'm staying true to myself and my beliefs, my morals and values.
'I think as sports people, we're really now able to understand our brand being beyond sport and being beyond what we do on the track. And almost trying to capitalise off that because we're not going to be athletes forever. So it's really important to be able to find a way to steer into your other interests, even while doing your sports, at least to set you up for when you're done.
Team Ireland's Sophie Becker, Rachel McCann, Sharlene Mawdsley and Rhasidat Adeleke after the Women's 4x400m relay qualifying round two during day two of the World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou, China, on May 11th, 2025. Photograph:for World Athletics
'So for me, lifestyle, beauty, fashion – these are things that I'm really fond of. And when it comes to collaborating with different companies, it's more so looking towards partnerships that I actually have an interest in. I think that's more authentic than trying to force something that is just being given to me. It's how you express yourself beyond what people see on the track.
'It's hard for people to really understand who I am and who we as athletes are because they see us at our most competitive forms. When we're displaying peak athleticism, we're not going to be showcasing the large extent of our personalities. So through these opportunities, through branding, through marketing, that's how we can actually show people who we are.
'As an athlete, we definitely have to watch out for what we put in our body. It's all important. And compared to a lot of other energy drinks, Celsius stood out in the ingredients and what the benefits are.'
This is her day-to-day, out in the big bad world. She graduated from the University of Texas in May of last year with a degree in Corporate Communications. College was the only American life she'd known and though she kept the same coach and still trains in Austin alongside Julien Alfred and Dina Asher-Smith, adult life is not student life. Even when you're only 22.
'It was definitely interesting,' she says of the transition. 'At first I was like, 'Okay, this is great! I don't have school, I can just train and figure out what I'm going to do for the rest of the day.' Just kind of chill. But I think I'm someone who thrives off structure. So having to create my own structure for the first couple of months was kind of hard.
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Rhasidat Adeleke came for an Olympic medal - the hurt of missing out will fuel her until she gets one
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'I'm still trying to figure out, trying to see what's going to work for me. At least now we have competitions, which include a lot of travel and then recovery. So that takes a lot of my time now. But trying to figure that out this past autumn when we weren't competing was harder.'
To occupy herself, she did a fair bit of reading, a lot of TV binge-watching, got into playing Topgolf of all things. She wanted to start a new pastime, maybe sign up for a class here and there. But a lot of what she was into demanded more of her attention than she was willing to slice off from the thing that matters most. She was thinking in terms of the odd drop-in session, not a full-blown new life departure.
Rhasidat Adeleke celebrates finishing second in the women's 4x400m relay final at the European Athletics Championships 2024 in Rome.
Photograph:'I really was going to pick up a hobby or take some classes,' she says. 'Like maybe learn Spanish or tailoring or something I would be into. But the way that those classes were structured, it was almost like an overcommitment. They needed you to be in your seat at 9am every day. I was like, 'Okay, that's not gonna work.'
'So after this competition season is over, I need to figure out what's going to work out for me. I know for sure that basing my whole week on track practice isn't going to work. I thought at the start that if every day was, 'prepare for training, go to training, come home and recover', it would make me so much better. But I think I got into a place where I wasn't doing anything other than training. So I need to figure out that balance again for the future.'
As we chat, it's Wednesday morning in Texas and the jetlag from China still has her in its grip. She went to bed on Tuesday at 6pm, woke up at one in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. There's a 13-hour time difference to recalibrate. It will take a while to escape its orbit.
It was a successful trip, all in all. She went to Shanghai first, where she came second in that 200m race at the Diamond League. Then it was onto Hong Kong to link up with the rest of the Ireland relay squad before they all decamped to Guangzhou for the World Relays.
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Ireland women's 4x400m relay team seal World Championships qualification in Guangzhou
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A year ago, they went to the Bahamas for the same event and
won bronze in the mixed relay
, breaking new ground and revelling wide-eyed in the novelty of it all. There was a different vibe about it this time around. They went to Guangzhou to attend to business.
They got in and got out and got two teams qualified for the World Championships – the women's 4x400m and the mixed 4x400m. Adeleke didn't run in the mixed relay final, neither did
Sharlene Mawdsley
or
Sophie Becker
. This wasn't about the podium. At least not the one in Guangzhou.
'The Bahamas was a totally different experience last year,' she says. 'For one, it was an Olympic year, so that Olympic qualification was really necessary, right? That was probably the only opportunity that we were going to have to run as a team together at such a high level . . . The level of competition was way higher. All the other countries brought their A-list athletes. It was an Olympic year so everything was really hyped up the whole year.
Rhasidat Adeleke is interviewed after winning the women's 400m dash during the Outdoor Track and Field Championship in June 2023 in Austin, Texas. Photograph: Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
'But this year it was more about going in, getting a qualification and heading out. We didn't make it into some monumental equation – it was just World Relays. We did everything very strategically.
'For example, last year I ran the women's relay and an hour later I ran the mixed relay. And the next day I came back and ran again! Because we had to do it, we had to make sure we got that Olympic qualification. But this year it was more about just getting the job done and then getting ready for the rest of the season.'
Everything about 2025 is different from the way she went about 2024. She skipped the indoor season entirely. Heroics weren't needed to negotiate the World Relays so she didn't try to provide them. Between her coach Edrick Floréal and herself, they have been building her body steadily through the winter and spring, adding layer upon layer to sustain her for longer through the season.
'My coach is very focused on us achieving our targets at the World Championships in September. By the time it came to September last year, I was so burnt out physically and mentally. We had just been go, go, go, go, go. The base that I had was wearing away. So what my coach decided to do was more so keep the base going, keep doing that groundwork and then we'll sharpen up close to the championships.
'I've run three times this season so far and each time I was like, 'Oh my God, I feel very different. I don't feel as sharp. I don't feel as quick. I feel sluggish.' And my coach is trying to remind me: 'Ray, you're not trying to break the world record right now. Focus on the goal.'
'So it's definitely a process. It's very different to how I used to be at this time of year. But I'm trusting him because what he says is, you know, I missed out on a medal in Paris last year and in Budapest in 2023. So it's more just doing something different. It could be a risk but you have to take risks sometimes to achieve your goals.'
And so the year lies before her. She will be in Europe for some Diamond League events towards the end of next month and will keep building through the summer towards Tokyo in September. The women's 400m has turned into one of the deepest events on the track – her Irish record of 49.07 will likely have to fall if she's going to take a medal.
That's fine. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. Adeleke will work towards it, gradually, methodically, relentlessly. This is the life she wanted.
She's 22 and the possibilities are endless.
♦ Rhasidat Adeleke is an ambassador for Celsius Energy Drinks.
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Irish Examiner
18 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
'A lot of aspects we wouldn't be happy with' says Pádraic Joyce as Galway edge thriller with Down
DOWN 3-21 (3-4-13) GALWAY 2-26 (2-5-16) In this great football championship, there is no time to cherish just how brilliant these games have been. Galway will move on quickly because they have to. Down will be thanked for playing their part in the second gem in the space of seven days but they will be soon forgotten and this will simply be filed on the growing pile of thrillers this competition has produced. The intense schedule of the championship gives us such small periods to anticipate but reflect too. We are being spoiled and we probably don't even know it because the frequency, not the amount of matches means this scintillating action is merely content. Perhaps later in the year Down's contribution to this fete of football will be acknowledged with an All Star for Odhrán Murdock. He was again immense here. His 64th minute goal brought Down within two points and threatened to spook Galway. After Tomo Culhane's goal and a follow-up point from another substitute Daniel O'Flaherty four minutes later, Pádraic Joyce's side were able to absorb another body blow when Ryan Magill found the net. Céin D'Arcy took plenty out of the sting out of that setback with a point to push Galway four up in the final minute. Ryan McEvoy's two-pointer after the buzzer was mere consolation. 'In fairness to our experienced lads, Peter Cooke made a massive difference when he came on the pitch,' said Pádraic Joyce. 'Tomo got a great goal, Daniel O'Flaherty got two points. 'Our bench has made a massive impact in the last couple of games, as it did today. Johnny Heaney came on after a head injury for Cillian [McDaid], he handled the ball three or four times and minded the ball really, really well. 'A lot of aspects we'd be really happy with, obviously a lot of aspects we wouldn't be happy with and the amount of scores we conceded. But it was that kind of game anyways, it was going to be open. We couldn't have it every way. Happy to get out of here with the win, to be honest.' The 14,435 crowd in Newry's Páirc Esler were genuinely treated to a spectacle and Galway were too good a team to depart at this relatively early juncture but just how many more of these close shaves they can keep enduring in such quick succession is questionable. All the same, they are demonstrating resolve and reserve by the bucketload. If the 1-8 from play return of the Cork inside line on Saturday evening was impressive, Galway's total of 1-13 was wonderful. In light of him turning on the charm once more with a total personal tally of 1-7, the extent of Shane Walsh's shoulder setback will exercise most supporters's minds ahead of their All-Ireland quarter-final. Assisted in no small part by the breeze, Galway's 10-point half-time lead (1-16 to 1-6) was sliced in half in less than four second-half minutes, The margin returned to eight in the 42nd minute but was whittled down to two by the 58th as Conor Flaherty couldn't find white shirts. Daniel Guinness sent over his second two-pointer and substitute Caolan Mooney added back-to-back points and Joyce twice summoned for Connor Gleeson to be ready to come on. However, the change never came. Substitute Cooke was becoming a presence. A Walsh two-point free despite him being clearly lame put Galway five ahead prior to Cooke having a shot kept out by Burns. The finale, the three goals, was popcorn-worthy. There had to be a tragic hero and Murdock made the role his own with his 64th minute goal. In the first quarter between woodwork and parts of Ronan Burns's anatomy, Galway left 2-3 on the pitch. Robert Finnerty was first to be denied by the young Down goalkeeper in the 15th minute and Cillian McDaid was stopped by Burns less than three minutes. Those openings had come after a 14th minute goal by John McGeough that was a casebook example of the lightning dash to Down's football in this championship. The home side had been under immense pressure on their kick-out and conceded five points in a row including a Finnerty two-pointer when a long boot from Burns landed over the Galway cover and Murdock drove forward and supplied McGeough for a tidy finish. At the third time of asking, Galway raised a green flag in the 22nd minute as Walsh took receipt of a Matthew Thompson pass and tucked the ball. However, it was not without controversy as Down's Patrick McCarthy was on the ground with a head injury when Galway turned over the ball in their own half. The Down management were apoplectic on the sideline and made their case to referee Derek O'Mahoney again at half-time. Yet their team's reaction to the setback was strong: Danny Magill sent over a quick brace of points and McCarthy's temporary replacement Eugene Branagan completed a hat-trick of unanswered scores. That 26th minute score, however, was Down's last of the half as Walsh made the game his own for the remainder. He sailed over the first of two-pointers in the 28th minute and caught the next kick-out ball that put in train the attack for a Finnerty point. Walsh brought his personal total to 1-3 with a point on the half-hour mark and then hurt his shoulder when winning a two-point free, which he converted a minute later. Thompson ended the half with three points himself, the second a two-pointer, to give Galway that handsome 10-point lead. In keeping with a championship where no advantage feels secure, it ended up being just about enough. Scorers for Down: O. Murdock (1-2); J. McGeough (1-1); D. Guinness (0-4, 2tps); R. McGill (1-0); D. Magill, M. Rooney (tp), P. Havern (frees), C. Mooney, R. McEvoy (tp) (0-2 each): E. Branagan, A. Crimmins (free), C. Doherty, J. Guinness (0-1 each). Scorers for Galway: S. Walsh (1-7, 2tpfs, 1 tp); R. Finnerty (0-6, 1tp, 1 free); M. Thompson (0-5, 1tp); T. Culhane (1-0); C. McDaid, M. Tierney, D. O'Flaherty (0-2 each); P. Cooke, C. Darcy (0-1 each). DOWN: R. Burns; C. Doherty, P. Fegan, P. Laverty; D. Magill, R. Magill, M. Rooney; D. Guinness, O. Murdock (c); J. Guinness, P. Havern, P. McCarthy; J. McGeough, R. McEvoy, A. Crimmins. Subs: E. Branagan for P. McCarthy (temp 22-26); E. Branagan for P. McCarthy (h-t); C. Mooney for J. McGeough (53); O. Savage for C. Doherty (58); C. McCrickard for A. Crimmins (62); F. Murdock for M. Rooney (66). GALWAY: C. Flaherty; J. McGrath, S. Fitzgerald, L. Silke; D. McHugh, S. Kelly (c), C. Hernon; P. Conroy, J. Maher; C. D'Arcy, M. Tierney, C. McDaid; R. Finnerty, M. Thompson, S. Walsh. Subs: P. Cooke for P. Conroy (48); D. O'Flaherty for C. Hernon (57); J. Heaney for C. McDaid (temp 61-69); T. Culhane for S. Walsh (62); J. Daly for J. Maher (67). Referee: D. O'Mahoney (Tipperary).
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Cathal Murray delighted as Galway begin to hit their straps
Cathal Murray hailed Galway's 'best half-hour of hurling for a while,' as the Tribeswomen cantered to a 1-17 to 0-12 victory over Kilkenny at UPMC Nowlan Park to signal that they are growing into their Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship campaign at just the right time. On a day when the Cork enjoyed a comfortable but unspectacular home win, Tipperary, Waterford and Galway also put their hands up with impressive victories that keep them on O'Duffy Cup holders' coat-tails. The leading challengers had plenty to spare in their wins over Limerick, Dublin and Kilkenny respectively, and Murray was particularly pleased to see his side move through the gears in the second half, as they went from two points up to an eight-point triumph. 'Coming down to Nowlan Park is never easy, and it wasn't easy,' said the Galway manager. 'The first half was really tight, and we were very happy to go in at half-time a couple of points up. There was a strong breeze in it, though you wouldn't think it looking at it,' he said afterwards. 'The second half was different, it was our best half an hour of hurling for a while now, our play was really good and we took some good scores.' Among the highlights were from some excellent moments from player of the match Aoife Donohoe, and a real poacher's goal from Niamh Niland in the closing minutes. The result means that top spot in Group 2, and the prize of a bye through to the last four, will go to the winner of next week's game in Athenry between Galway and Waterford. 'This was always going to be a huge week for us. We had to come down and do our business here and we'll have to do our business again in Kenny Park in a week's time because Waterford are flying it, they're the form team in the group,' Murray concluded. The Déise's 4-16 to 2-11 win over Dublin in Walsh Park, with the visitors' goals coming from Aisling Maher and Emma Flanagan in second-half stoppage time long after the result was decided, ensures that they currently top the table on score difference. Consequently, a draw will be enough for them to bypass the quarter-finals, set to be played in Croke Park in a fortnight as curtain raisers to the two All-Ireland SHC semis. That's nine majors in two games for a Waterford side that had previously been criticised for being goal-shy, three of them coming from the stick of Annie Fitzgerald. 'That was massive for us to qualify for the knockout stages early enough,' said Fitzgerald. 'In previous years we've been chasing this, now it's a one match, winner-takes-all against Galway to see who goes straight to a semi-final. Manager Mick Boland was delighted with how his players responded after going five points down early on when playing into the wind. 'The breeze was very strong, the ball was going an extra ten yards further so we just had to retreat back down the field,' Boland told Off The Ball. 'Then we started to collect a bit of ball then and started to work the ball through the hands. We created three or four goal chances and took two of them. 'Against Kilkenny we put a lot of shots at head or stomach height. Since then, we've learned that if you hit the ball into the ground, it'll either hit the net or it'll need an exceptional save. We've worked a lot on our handling errors too.' With Waterford leading 2-7 to 0-8 at half-time, the second half was one-way traffic, the winners adding 2-7 without reply in the 20 minutes after the resumption. Having already secured a first ever championship win over Kilkenny, Boland's mob are looking to break fresh ground again next week. 'We're qualified, but we look at the Galway match as a match where history can be made, because we've never won in Galway. These girls have a lot of ambition, they want to win something, so we'll want to win, the same as Galway will want to win.' In Group 1, Clare went to SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh and exploded out of the blocks with a Jennifer Daly goal after 45 seconds, but Cork methodically went about their business and were full value for their 0-21 to 1-9 victory, albeit Amy Lee had to make a couple of excellent saves late on to prevent a more nerve-wracking finale. Next week Cork will play a Wexford side that are in the relegation final against either Dublin or Derry regardless of how they fare, and it would take an unusual set of results for Tipperary to pip Cork to the top spot in the pool. Limerick need an even more outlandish result – a Tipp home win over Clare by 60 points or more – to extend their season. After succumbing to a 4-26 to 0-8 loss in Cappamore, Limerick manager, Joe Quaid's hailed his players' 'remarkably good year,' despite the wide margin. 'This result is proof that the system is flawed,' declared Quaid. 'We had two outstanding matches against Wexford and Clare but were on the end of two hammerings by the two top-tier teams, Cork and Tipp. It's disheartening for the girls because they gave everything they could out there and that's all you can ask. 'If anyone's interested in developing camogie they need to take a look at the championship structure countrywide because these girls train as hard as the Limerick senior hurlers, they're as committed and they don't deserve this. 'To me we've had a remarkably good year. It's been a fruitful year and hopefully this bunch will stick together. That's the big problem, turnover of players. I hope all these girls will stay together next year and build on it again.' Tipperary coach, Michael Ferncombe was already looking ahead but he has had some words of comfort for the Shannonsider. 'Both teams managed the heat very well today, both teams worked hard, the honesty from the two teams was great,' Ferncombe enthused. 'We've played Limerick twice this year and it's always a challenge. The scoreboard doesn't reflect the performance and the effort that the Limerick girls put in. Their honesty, work rate and communication, they kept working the whole way through and that's a great sign for the future of Limerick camogie. 'We've Clare next weekend and a quarter-final in two weeks' time so that's the next step for us now.'
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
USA trip about more than the results for Ward
Michelle O'Brien holds the distinction of being the only Irish player to score against the USA and she was American-born herself. Ireland are back Stateside this week, preparing for two friendlies against the side ranked first in Fifa rankings, starting late on Thursday night in Colorado (2am Fri, Irish time) and concluding on Sunday in Cincinnati (8pm Irish time). It marks a reunion for English friends Carla Ward, in charge of visitors, and Emma Hayes leading the Americans. They worked together last summer when the USA claimed gold at the Paris Olympics, five months before Ward was appointed as Ireland boss. History and form illustrate this is a mismatch. Ireland lag 24 places behind their hosts in the global listings and are missing a clutch of regulars, including captain Katie McCabe. Transatlantic relations have contributed to 16 friendlies between the nations' women's team. All 16 went the way of the Stars and Stripes. O'Brien's goal in the 5-1 thumping back in 2004 at Soldiers Field marks Ireland's sole goal. Ward's first objective as Ireland boss of promotion to League A didn't go to plan as Slovenia snatched top spot, leaving them with a playoff against Belgium in October to join the top 16 nations in next year's World Cup qualifiers. These friendlies were scheduled within that context. 'The result is not what we're going after,' admitted Ward, after settling into the team hotel, preparing for a game in 100 degrees of heat and at 1,600m of altitude. 'We'd be foolish to say we are coming here to win these games of football but we have to look bigger than that, where we're at and trying to build. 'We've got quite a young squad here so there will be a few players we'll look at across both games naturally. 'We have to make sure we put ourselves in a position to be competitive. So across the two games, I'd like to think we can have a look at a decent amount of players.' US-based players Denise O'Sullivan and Kyra Carusa will join up on Monday with a squad that's increasingly showing a proportion of players without clubs. Heather Payne and Aoife Mannion are in that boat too, the latter staying home despite appearing in a 7-a-side tournament for Manchester United at the end of May. 'I'm not surprised there are an amount of players without a club - that is normal for this time of year,' stressed the former Aston Villa and Birmingham City manager. 'There are a lot of people who are having conversations with clubs. 'I'm quite hands-on by speaking to a lot of the players and I understand who is potentially going where. There is no concern. This is normal for this time of year, unless you are on a two- or three-year deal. 'Aoife has had a difficult year. She struggled with a few injuries towards the back end. She is exhausted. And we have to look after people on a human level as well. It's not about flogging them. It's about looking after them.'
