When the head of Reece Ademola first pops up on the Zoom conference call it requires an immediate adjustment of our screens. Ademola pushes his back a little, then we do too, to facilitate some appreciation of his full height and size.
All 6ft 9in of it, to be exact, stretched out on to his just over 100kg frame, pretty exceptional for any 19-year-old, no matter what their sporting discipline.
When I suggest Ademola must be the best-kept secret in Irish athletics it’s no exaggeration: though not entirely unnoticed, the Cork teenager came magnificently close to winning a medal in the long jump at the World Under-20 Championships in Cali, Colombia last August, sitting in a podium position until two final round efforts denied him.
It would have been historic too, as no Irish long jumper has made the podium on the global stage in modern times. Ademola eventually settled for fifth, further improving his own Irish U-20 record to 7.83 metres, the third best by any Irish jumper behind the senior record of 8.07m, set by Ciaran McDonagh back in 2005.
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Before Cali, Ademola’s best was 7.68m, his improvement more notable given he was away from the sport for over two years up to 2021, another sudden growing spurt severely inhibited his training (he was already hitting 6hft by age 12).
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When, later in August, sprinters Israel Olatunde (aged 20) and Rhasidat Adeleke (aged 19) wrote their own little piece of Irish athletics history at the European Championships in Munich, all the talk was of this new generation, and Ademola has been taking suitable inspiration too.
“They’re like idols to me, and to Ireland,” he says, “I really look up to both of them, not just on the track, but from the black culture side of things, where they’re really doing us justice too.”
Speaking at the announcement of Athletic Ireland’s new title sponsorship with insurance company 123.ie, for the next three years, Ademola credits his club Leevale for getting him back involved, having tried several other sports over the years including basketball with Coláiste Chríost Rí, plus Blue Demons and Neptune.
“I had an injury in my knee, lateral meniscus on the outside part of my knee, and so I was out for a couple of years. I suffered a lot of injuries because of my height because of how quickly I was growing, the bone wouldn’t catch up to the muscle and I dealt with a lot of back and knee problems, so there are faults to being tall.
“I had to limit myself quite a bit but now it’s easing off, hopefully. I was kind of reintroduced then by one of the coaches in Leevale, Derek Neff, who got me back into it for the leagues. So I jumped that 7.47 jump and that’s kind of how I got back into everything and how things got back in motion, I was reintroduced and fell upon Liz [Coomey].
“Now that I’m back, I definitely do think I was born for this, for track and field and the long jump. I played basketball, I was always the tall one in a crowd, I’d throw the ball in the hoop or dunk it or whatever.
“But my make up, I think I was just born for this. It’s something in my head. I have a huge passion for track and field, I always have from the age of nine so 10 years now, I’ve always had a huge passion for it.”
The Cali experience unquestionably heightened his desire.
“I was buzzing from the get-go. When I was in the airport I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m about to head out on a plane to Colombia, of all places’. It was just a big rush to the head.”
He turns 20 in February, his next main goal being the 2023 European Under-23 Championships, and he has other passions too – six weeks into his first year in culinary at the Munster Technological University in Cork.
“I love experimenting in the kitchen, I always had a passion for cooking, creative I’d say, finding two and two and putting it together. I love all that.”
His younger brother Alex, aged 18, is already 6ft 9in, and maybe a secret in waiting too.
For Ademola that long-standing Irish record is now firmly is his head, the possibility of the Paris Olympics too.
“I wouldn’t say I’m within an arm’s reach of it,” he says of Paris, “but I feel like I have a good chance of making it out there. The training I’m doing is pretty intense compared to last year.
“If I just put in the time and effort, last year was a bit of a lazy year, I was just on and off [on the training], kind of getting my bearings on life. But now I’m seeing my potential and where I can go with it, so I’m going to stick at it and see where it takes me.
“Definitely my sprinting technique. It’s better than last year but I could definitely get it way higher. I feel like I could do a lot better with it. Even my approach to the board as well, I do suffer a bit with my penultimate step. There’s loads to work on, no one is ever perfect, there’s always things you could be better on.”
Maybe not much of a secret for much longer so.
