The European Athletics Championships in Birmingham are now just over five weeks away and several Irish athletes are still in the race for qualification. The most surprising of those is Rhasidat Adeleke, who hasn’t been seen in any individual 400m event in a year.
Thankfully the wait is now over, and so naturally there is much anticipation around Adeleke’s return to racing at the Prefontaine Classic meeting in Eugene, Oregon, her event taking place overnight on Friday, Irish time.
At the last European Championships in Rome, in June 2024, Adeleke came away with three medals, including silver in the 400m where she ran her Irish record of 49.07 seconds. She also won gold with the mixed 4x400m relay and silver with the women’s 4x400m relay. Her trajectory was soaring.
Adeleke remains the first and only Irish woman to run below 50 seconds for the event, doing so 10 times in all. Still only 23, she has struggled to regain the form that also saw her finish in fourth place at the Paris Olympics in 2024 before also finishing fourth with the Irish women’s 4x400m relay, agonisingly shy of Olympic bronze.
Then 2025 proved a difficult and testing year, a series of injuries and setbacks ultimately forcing her withdrawal from the World Championships in Tokyo.
Adeleke finished fourth in Oregon this time last year. In the meantime, she’s dropped out of the women’s 400m world rankings. For six weeks, back in July and August of 2024, she was ranked third best.
The more immediate target in Eugene will be the 51.20 qualifying time for Birmingham, one that should come easy for her if she’s anywhere close to full fitness. But there will always be some doubts for any athlete who hasn’t raced their preferred event in a year.
Adeleke’s fastest 400m time last year was the 50.42 she ran in Oslo, which means she hasn’t broken 50 seconds since 2024. I hope this can be a line in the sand race for Adeleke, who is also down to race the Monaco Diamond League next week, an event she won in 2024.
Diamond League races are never an easy starting point, given they attract some of the best athletes in the world.
Given her lack of recent races, Adeleke will have to be content with an outside lane, so I certainly would not expect too much from her tomorrow. Achieving the qualifying time for Birmingham would be one box ticked, then she can look towards running faster over the next five weeks.
At the last European Championships in Rome, Sharlene Mawdsley also enjoyed great success in the relay, anchoring the mixed 4x400m and the women’s 400m. In almost direct contrast to Adeleke, her individual times have been fast improving since, and she’s now touching on that truly world-class standard of below 50 seconds.
Mawdsley ran a fourth successive personal best of 50.06 to finish fifth in her Diamond League debut in Paris last Sunday. She was also running in lane two, and must now believe a faster time is possible, with a more favourable lane draw.
Mawdsley is currently ranked fifth best woman in Europe over 400m, and if Adeleke can get back to anywhere near her best, there might well be two Irish women in the race for the medals in Birmingham.
Other Irish athletes are at different stages in their build-up. While Cian McPhillips surprised many with his fourth-place finish at the World Championships last year, he has only just got his season started, running a solid 1:44.89 in Hengelo. However, that is only the 31st best time in Europe so far this season, highlighting how the standard in 800m racing continues to improve each year.
Mark English has shown some good form so far, running six races, including an Irish record over 1,000m, his season best of 1:43.80 ranks him fifth in Europe. English will be chasing his third outdoor European Championship medal.
Sarah Healy is another Irish athlete yet to hit the form that saw her reach the World Championship 1,500m final last year. She will also race in Eugene on Friday night, but it’s unclear yet what distance she will focus on at the European Championships. She has also dabbled in the 5,000m this year, running a solid 14:48.88, which also ranks her fifth in Europe.
Then there’s Kate O’Connor, currently ranked number one in Europe and second in the world in the heptathlon. We’ll get the first view of her current form when she competes at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, her two-day event set for July 28th and 29th.
There are then just over two weeks before the European Championships begin, so O’Connor will be hoping for a smooth run through all her seven events in Glasgow, before making the journey down the road to Birmingham.
There will be plenty more athletes to watch in the coming weeks as they fine tune their preparations for Birmingham. Three Irish athletes are in contention over 5,000m − Brian Fay, Nick Griggs and Darragh McElhinney − all three are due to line up at the Morton Games next Friday where a first ever sub 13-minute run in Ireland could be on the cards.
There is also a high-quality women’s 800m set for the Cork City Sports next Wednesday, with Emma Moore leading the way so far this year. Another highlight will likely to be the duel in the hammer cage between Nicola Tuthill, who last weekend improved her best to 72.73m, against world number one Camryn Rogers from Canada, the World and Olympic champion.
