A reminder, perhaps, that Irish athletics isn’t quite ready for any changing of the old guard as Ciara Mageean produced the run of her life over the mile at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco, taking another long-standing Irish senior record from Sonia O’Sullivan.
On a night originally billed as a global showdown over the women’s 400 metres, there was still a properly world-class race for 20-year-old Rhasidat Adeleke, who finished fourth on her Diamond League debut.
The Irish result of the night, however, belonged to Mageean, the 31-year-old smashing the Irish women’s mile record with a quite startling 4:14.58.
That was more than good enough for second behind Faith Kipyegon from Kenya, who claimed her third world record of the season with as astonishing 4:07.64. That took the best part of five seconds off the previous mark set on this same track by the Dutch woman Sifan Hassan in 2019.
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Kipyegon, who last month broke both the world records over 1,500m and 5,000m, was soon out her own in chasing that 4:12.33 of Hasan, and once she hit the bell, breaking that record was never in doubt.
Indeed this was unquestionably the greatest women’s mile ever run, each of the 13 women who finished running either a world record, a national record, or a personal record.
For Mageean, whose previous best was the 4:19:03 she ran in 2019, the improvement to 4:14.58 improved by almost three seconds the Irish record of 4:17.26 which had belonged to O’Sullivan since 1994, run at the Bislett Games in Oslo. Last year, Mageean also took some two seconds off O’Sullivan’s Irish 1,500m record, running 3:56.63 to win the Diamond League in Brussels.
Third in Monaco, in a season’s best, was the Ethiopian Freweyui Hailu, running 4:14.79, with Laura Muir running a new British mile record of 4:15.24 in fourth. It leaves Mageean well poised to challenge for a medal over 1,500m at the World Championships in Budapest, now less than a month away.
Earlier, Adeleke found herself in a winning position coming into the homestretch in lane five. But in sight of the win, she was first passed by European silver medallist Natalia Kaczmarek from Poland, in the lane outside her, who took the win in 49.63 seconds. Shamier Little, the recent US champion over the 400m hurdles, also finished fast in the outside lane to nail second, running a personal best of 49.68, her first time under 50 seconds.
Lieke Klaver of the Netherlands, running to her inside, was awarded third in 49.99, the same time as Adeleke. Sada Williams from Barbados was fifth in 50 seconds flat. The American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who clocked a world-leading 48.74 last weekend to win the US 400m title, was a late withdrawal due to a knee injury
It was only Adeleke’s second ever professional race, inside the Stade Louis-II Stadium in the heart of Monaco, and followed her professional debut at the Istvan Gyulai meeting in Szekesfehervar, Hungary on Tuesday, where she finished second in 22.36, just .02 off her Irish record of 22.34.
In another world-class race in the 100m hurdles, Sarah Lavin was just outside her season best, running 12.74 to finish seventh. The American, Nia Ali, took the win in a world best of the year of 12.30 seconds, also a meeting record and a personal best.
