1. The student athlete
Tuesday afternoon, at the corner of Mike A Myers Stadium, waiting for Rhasidat Adeleke to start practice, the sky is hazy but the sun floats through. It’s hot down here in Austin, Texas, even at the end of March, and the air soon burns.
As an athlete training to be among the best sprinters in the world, this 20-year-old Irish woman has chosen to make Austin her home from home partly because of the heat.
Practice is what they call training in college in the United States, and no one is late. It’s 2.30pm when she walks out of the glass-doored building and into the 20,000-seater arena, the home of track and field at the University of Texas. The arena lies in the shadow of their Memorial Stadium, the college football behemoth which seats 100,119 spectators.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
It’s thousands of kilometres away from those cold dark evenings training at Tallaght athletics track, where Adeleke first started running fast around the age of 14, while at school at Presentation College Terenure. The best way to put in context how far she’s come and what she has achieved since, particularly during the past 2½ years in Texas, is to come here and capture it all up close.
I still think she’s only grasping the concept of being an Olympic gold medallist at some point. It’s hard to wrap your head around that, when so many people in Ireland don’t think that about a sprinter
— Edrick Floréal, aka Coach Flo at the University of Texas
One of the first things Adeleke tells me is that Austin, or anywhere else in Texas for that matter, is not where she first wanted or imagined she would be once her sprinting talent became so magnificently apparent; her first big breakthrough came in 2018, when she won the European Under-18 gold medal in the 200 metres.
“When I first thought of college in United States, it was like, definitely not. I was thinking it would be a dangerous place,” she says.
“I was recruited by a few different schools, but came for a visit here, with my mom [Ade], and instantly just loved the team, the team atmosphere, I felt it was really family orientated.
“And I knew that’s what I would need, considering I was coming from so far away, over 4,000 miles away. I don’t have a family in Texas, so it was very important for me to find people who I could trust and confide in, and I definitely found that here, it’s such a really good spot.
“So no regrets at all. Quite the opposite. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”
She’s dressed in a white hoody, black tights and black runners. Everything looks brand new and Adeleke, hands on hips, completely looks the part. She joins a circle of teammates, the Texas sprint group which includes some of the best in the world such as Julien Alfred, the 21-year-old from St Lucia, currently the fastest woman in college in United States. They start the warm-up, running an unhurried lap of the infield, followed by high leg raises and other slow loosening routines. It’s a sprint session done in marathon time.
Then it’s spikes on and showtime. Coach Flo – Edrick Floréal – has been here hours already, working with some of the jumpers and hurdlers. The session is stick specific – stick is what they call relay practice in United States – and it’s not rushed either.
Adeleke (known as Rey to her teammates) is paired with Alfred (known as Ju-Ju). By now they’ve been joined by the other training groups – the men’s sprinters, the women’s distance group – and there’s a portable speaker blasting out some American rap courtesy of Polo G.
The stick practice only covers 150 metres, over several repeats. Coach Flo shouts “75″ which means going 75 per cent effort. Next repeat he ups it to “85″, mimicking the arm-pumping action, fast and upfront, elbows close to hips.
“Stick! ... Stick! ... Stick!” they shout, in the moment of transition.
Flo is shooting video footage on his phone, and they huddle around and watch it straight back. The session is simple, not particularly strenuous given competition events to come at the weekend; lighthearted too, with moments of finger-pointing. He gives and gets their complete attention.
After some ball-throwing exercises and 150m bursts, it’s after 5pm when they’re done, a team meeting still to come. It will be after 6pm when Adeleke gets back to her dorm room; an e-scooter is her mode of transport around campus. It’s off to the dining hall then for dinner, all nutritional needs laid out for her, before she gets down to the books for the rest of the evening.
One of the biggest misconceptions of athletes on scholarships in the United States is that they get a free ride on the academic side. But the biggest adjustment to life in Austin for Adeleke, beyond that heat, has been juggling the academic and athletic demands, both essentially full-time. She trains six days a week, most days twice; weightroom in the morning, track in the afternoon.
“It’s my third year now, so I certainly feel I’m maturing all the time. I’m starting to know how life runs here, so it’s way smoother than it was. I’m enjoying it, feel like I’m learning more every day. Right now I have a lot of group projects, finals are a little bit earlier this year, so I’m just getting ready for that.
“But I always have someone to talk to, like we all have our academic advisers, even my teammates, we’re all going through the same thing. We can give each other advice, ‘oh, you have that class as well, it’s very taxing’.”
She writes goals and targets on her dorm room wall. “My initial goal is just to always compete to the best of my ability,” she says. “Times come with that, after practice in training. I don’t put too much pressure on myself to attain certain things. But I definitely have a rough estimate in my head of what I want to achieve.”
Her Tallaght accent still clear, she says she didn’t have time to be homesick at first. Arriving in Texas midsemester in January 2021, still only 18, she was already well behind on the orientation process. She still calls her mother every day, if her mother doesn’t call her first; Ade made a surprise trip for the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Indoor Championships in Albuquerque last March.
In order to graduate with her classmates in 2024, she’s taking extra classes to make up the time she lost. She’s still unsure of her final major – she had originally opted for Engineering but is switching now into Corporate Communication, something to “merge with my track life, [that] would actually be effective in my life, and that I would actually enjoy doing.”
Even in a hip city like Austin, the live music capital of United States with its famous Sixth Street that never sleeps, it’s hard to get too distracted, especially when she’s still a year under the legal drinking age. Her social life is select.
“We sometimes do [go out], it all depends. Maybe during the fall, but once we’re in season, we’re all just focused on the competition. I guess the people who are running don’t want to do that kind of thing as much. And we’re usually too wrecked to go out, to be honest.
“I just want to work harder, run faster, that’s what drives me on. And the people who are supporting me, here and back home, that really motivates me, trying to make an impact, as a sprinter.”
2. The head coach
“Small world,” says Coach Flo, then promptly repeats it for emphasis. “Small world.”
He’s telling the story of where his own athletic career began after being recruited to the University of Arkansas by John McDonnell, the Mayo-born coach who turned their track and field programme into the envy of United States.
Once there, he won five NCAA triple jump titles, later representing Canada in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. Born in Haiti, the 56-year-old still holds Frank O’Mara, one of our finest distance runners, as “one of his best running buddies”.
After coaching in Stanford (from 1998), then Kentucky (from 2012), he’s been head track and field coach at the University of Texas since 2018. How did he first hear of Rhasidat Adeleke?
“I was watching videos on YouTube, those European Championships for under-18 athletes, actually looking out for someone else, an athlete someone told me about.
“So I’m fast-forwarding through it, see Rhasidat, was like ‘what is that?’ My wife was sitting next to me, and I said ‘I don’t know what that is, but I want one!’”
His wife, LaVonna Ann, is no stranger to the sport, an Olympic silver medal winner in the 100m hurdles in 1992. They quickly hatched a plan.
“I actually went to her Instagram, followed her, then DM’d her, and she got back to say she wasn’t sure about the US, there’s a lot of bad things about the US ... and I just told her what I’d done, about my resume, internationally and professionally.
“She thought sure, I’ll come take a look. The Texas Tech heard about it, got her to take a look as well. Once she came on campus, it was clear that the facilities, the living arrangements, the dining, the nutrition, the massage, all this is included, and her academic education; it was basically a slam dunk.
“No offence to Ireland, but we probably spend more money on the University of Texas track and field team than Ireland spends. This is just the situation; where the times in the US are so much better, it’s not because the coaching is like ‘oh my God’, it’s because of the resources and the amount of money allocated to it.
“I mean, just look at this facility, just for the university. Then you go into the weight room, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, all there for the athlete to get better. That’s why the path to be successful is so much better here.”
Everything is bigger in Texas.
Adeleke arriving midsemester meant Flo didn’t have much time to get down to business, always believing her true potential was in the 400 metres. “Everyone had already bonded, made friends, then there’s a new girl. It was challenging, in the beginning, the training was way too hard for her, the girls here are so competitive. But once I watched her moving, it was clear this girl had really high potential.
“Now, she’s the one most of the girls have a hard time working out with, because she’s the one pushing them. If she’s not in front, she’s going to die trying.
“Some things she still doesn’t like much. And the weight room is one of them. She’s got a lot stronger. You show up every day, lift weights, you’re going to get stronger. I wish that’s something she’d put a little more into, but after the [NCAA] indoors, she’s making a concerted effort to get physically stronger.”
Ask Adeleke about the level of trust she has in her coach and the respect is mutual. “Flo knows.Once he recognises talent, and says ‘right, you can achieve this’ ... before I’d be like ‘he’s just saying that’, but now, seeing the times I’ve run, everything he said I’d achieve, I’ve achieved, that just gives me more motivation to keep working towards what he believes I can achieve.
“Essentially I just work harder every day to make sure of that, to make him proud. Because he’s proud too, and I just want to do what he says, to benefit everyone.”
The conversation moves to medals, and the ultimate goal of Olympic gold. Coach Flo has no hesitation in going there, his mantra being once you’re good enough to make the final, then it’s absolutely possible.
“I still think she’s only grasping the concept of being an Olympic gold medallist at some point. It’s hard to wrap your head around that, when so many people in Ireland don’t think that about a sprinter,” he says.
“The tough part of coaching is getting them to believe in that potential. It’s much more difficult than people think. Being good, being gifted, is great, but you also have to be equipped.”
Which is why he’s “still pissed off” Athletics Ireland didn’t send her to the Tokyo Olympics as part of the mixed 4x400m relay despite her running the fastest split-time that summer, gunning for the experience too. What he’s most certain about is that she’s born and bred for 400m racing.
“She’s built a little sleeker, with a little more finesse, that’s your quarter-miler. At first, she didn’t like it, eventually she got to appreciate it.
“Strength plays a huge role, because the stronger you are, the easier it is to travel along the track. And technique is big. Her mechanics are bad. Her arms look like she’s washing dishes, she’s all over the place. If she can gain one one-hundredth of a second with each arm swing, you go around the track, 100-plus strides, that’s three or four tenths [of a second] there.”
It’s clear in conversation their relationship goes further than all of this, with Coach Flo suggesting himself that looking after her, being a father figure, is part of the deal.
“If you’re in position to affect a young person’s life you’ve got to make the right decisions. I want to make the right decisions, and also keep her enjoying it. I mean, the way she smiles, the way she bounces around while she’s training, that’s really what this is all about. And having someone who is really that good.
“Okay, she’s giving me lots more grey hairs, some things I don’t really argue with, have just learned to leave her alone. When it’s time to get serious I tell her. But for the most part I just let her have some fun. It’s not that time yet.
“But after the NCAAs, when she finished second, before she might have said to me ‘that was too hard’. This time she looked me in the eyes and said ‘we gotta get cracking’. That’s a big difference in her approach. Her mind is made up now, ‘I have to get better. Because these girls are better than me, and I can’t live with it.’”
3. Campus life
To walk from the Texas State Capitol building in downtown Austin to the first buildings of the University of Texas takes about three minutes. Founded in 1883, the campus is still known as the Forty Acres, the size of the original tract set aside by the state, with College Hill at its centre.
How its grown. It’s unclear whether the city merged into the university or the other way around; either way it feels one and the same. The main campus now covers 423 acres, the university property is 1,438 acres in all.
It has also become one of the largest and most diverse universities in United States, with some 52,000 students, representing all 50 states, with 3,133 teaching staff, a total budget of just over $3.6 billion (€3.3 billion) per year across 18 college departments, with 17 libraries and seven museums. It’s in part divided by Interstate-35, which runs from Dallas down to San Antonio.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
It’s also known as one of the Public Ivies, a reference to its perceived collegiate experience on a par with the hallowed Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Yale and Brown, with tuition fees to match; for non-Texas residents that’s around $70,000 per year. Lots of big-names have graduated from here, from basketballer Kevin Durant and golfer Jordan Spieth to actors Matthew McConaughey and Jayne Mansfield.
Trace the trail of successful Irish athletes on scholarship in United States, almost exclusively in distance running, beginning in the 1950s with Ronnie Delany at Villanova in Pennsylvania, later Eamonn Coghlan and Sonia O’Sullivan there too, to the East Tennessee brigade including Ray Flynn and John Treacy at Providence in Rhode Island, and there’s no evidence of that around Texas.
All of which makes what Adeleke is achieving here, and her inevitable success to come, unprecedented by any Irish athlete in any sport. Already the first Irish athlete to medal in a sprint event at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships, winning silver indoors over 400 metres last month, she’s also had to do it in the best sprinting environment in United States.
There is plenty of history of that around Texas. Carl Lewis went to college in Houston. Michael Johnson went to Baylor. The University of Texas, known on the field of play as the Longhorns with that cattle head in burnt orange and white on their uniform, takes sport extremely seriously, especially track and field.
There is ample evidence inside the Longhorns Sports Museum where, laid out across a series of rooms, are all their national championship trophies in football and basketball, tennis, swimming and track and field, and a wall dedicated to the students or alumni who have won 155 Olympic medals between them.
It’s the Longhorns team spirit: the buy-in is all or nothing. It’s one of the reasons Adeleke is soaring here.
“I never had this team aspect before. Because this is team running, essentially. We’ll score points, all try to win nationals for the team. I never had that experience in Ireland, where it is very much more individual.
“There’s always that bit more support too, like how your teammates do can really affect the team atmosphere and the team dynamic. We’re always doing a lot of team bonding exercises, [and we] really root for each other. It’s not fake or for show. We really hope the best for each other.
“The other main thing for me is to just manage my workload, because it’s very important for me to graduate, keep up my grades. But it’s just really cool, taking a lot of classes, in different courses.”
This semester it’s French, and a course in African-American culture; that variety is all part of the American college experience.
For Adeleke the best is yet to come over 400m, the event she only moved up to late last season, improving her Irish outdoor record to 50.53 seconds, clocked when she finished fifth in the European Championship 400m final in Munich last August.
She improved that indoors at the NCAA’s to 50.33, the magical sub-50 barrier now beckoning. “I’m really excited about it. I only did about four, five proper outdoor races last year, so that was a new experience. This year I feel like I’m more trained for it, more used to it, and looking forward to seeing what is possible.
“But I always just keep that focus on myself, because there’s always going to be people with eyes on you, pressure like that. So my focus is staying in my own spot, my own space.”
Also beckoning is what American sport calls “turning pro”, a contract that would tie her and her image to a shoe company in return for a hefty sum of dollars. The question now is not if, only when: “I’m not in a rush to go pro. Whatever happens, happens, but I definitely just want to finish my degree, so even if I do go pro, I’ll definitely come back for a year to graduate, at some point,” she says.
“I’m just seeing how things play out, not thinking about it that much. I’m very open-minded about it. If a really good opportunity comes along, and I feel like I’m not ready, I wouldn’t go there yet. It just all depends on how I feel.
“In school, a lot of things are taken care of for me here, everything medically, mentally, if I need anything I can just call one of the staff. Once you go pro, you don’t necessarily have all that support. You have to seek it outside.”
Coach Flo, if and when that time comes, won’t be standing in her way: “If she wants to stay in college, the college environment keeps her away from the sharks and the snakes, who just want a percentage of her money. And I’d love to get her to Paris [for the Olympics in 2024] in that mindset. Because once you lose the joy and the fun, it just becomes work.
“My job is to get her into the final. The reality is she’s a rare talent, but is she going to be running for Texas next year? Ideally, you don’t want to hold someone too long. There are natural jumps in life, and if someone produces those times, whether it’s right for the school or not, it’s right for the athlete. And I’m hoping that things continue in that she can further her dream of being a professional athlete. But she has to graduate, that’s one promise I made to her mom.”
The weekend rolls around and it’s showtime again. At the home of athletics in Texas, nothing comes bigger than the Texas Relays. Never in the 95 editions of the famed event has the home university celebrated a weekend like this one, with Adeleke playing a starring role in the breaking of three different American collegiate records over the final two days of competition.
The event has been staged on the first weekend in April since 1925 and now attracts some 5,000 student and professional athletes from across the US, competing before 50,000 spectators. Adeleke races five times in four different relay events, with Texas winning them all – starting with the sprint medley record on the Friday evening, then the 4x200m record, a 4x100m record, and finally the 4x400m on Saturday, where Adeleke runs the anchor winning leg much to the delight of the home crowd.
There, Coach Flo records a split time of 49.2 seconds, the fastest of her life. “Three collegiate records, here, is probably one of the greatest feats I’ve ever been part of,” says Coach Flo. “If you get one collegiate record it’s like ‘wow’, you get two, it’s like ‘what’s going on’ But three? And those were the three we wanted to get, so it’s not accidental.”
There’s a long summer season ahead, culminating with the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August: “My only job is to get her into the final,” he says. “After that, the colour of the medal is up to her. I think she’s equipped to do that, but what happens in the final is just a personal statement.”
For Adeleke, Budapest is a long way off. The main goal for now is the NCAA outdoor championships, back in Austin in June.
“This just gives me some confidence now, through the outdoor season,” she says. “We’ll see how the season plays out, but I’m confident to continue training hard, see what I can pull out on the track.”
There are big goals beyond that, the Paris Olympics and the medal podium unquestionably within her reach. The big goal plenty of people are talking about down here.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
Personal bests
After breaking almost every Irish junior sprint record, Rhasidat Adeleke went about breaking senior records too; still only 20, she’s just getting started, running faster indoors this season than outdoors last year.
Outdoors
100m: 11.31 National Under-20 record (2021)
200m: 22.59 National record (2022)
400m: 50.53 National record (2022)
Indoors
60m: 7.17 National record (2022)
200m: 22.52 National record (2023)
400m: 50.33 National record (2023)
Underage medals
Before she went about breaking American collegiate records, she won a series of underage medals, including:
European U-20 Championships, Tallinn 2021, 100m and 200m gold
European Youth Olympics, Baku, 2019, 100m and 200m gold
European U-18 Championships, Gyor 2018, 200m gold
