Inside Track: Olatunde is coming back to his best

As expected, Kate O’Connor has been named on the Ireland team for next month’s World Championships. No place, however, for Dundalk’s other top-flight athlete, sprinter Israel Olatunde. It was always on the cards that heptathlete O’Connor would be making the trip to Tokyo.

Having competed with distinction in the Paris Olympics, she carried her best form through to this season, winning the Irish title.

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O’Connor has stayed injury-free on her climb to the top, and the hope is it remains that way as she eyes up a second Olympics outing, the Los Angeles Games scheduled for 2028.

Israel Olatunde hasn’t been so lucky on the injury front. After becoming the fastest Irish runner of all time twelve months ago, the world, it seemed, was his oyster.

He signed up for a winter’s training in America under the guidance of Lance Brahman. His progress there was easily measured – among his colleagues, in Florida, was Olympic 100m champion, Bori Akinola.

Back in Ireland, he qualified for the National Championships 100m final in August, but had to withdraw due to a hamstring injury.

All seemed to be going good prior to that when he formed part of the Ireland 4x100m relay team that broke the national record, which had stood for 25 years. That was in Geneva; a few weeks later, the record was lowered once again, this time in Slovenia. His latest injury then set in.

That Olatunde is back to his best was illustrated at London’s Lee Valley Stadium the Saturday before last. In finishing second to Eugene Amo-Dadzie, the 23-year-old lowered his 10.08 Irish record by four-hundredths of a second.

The competition was hot. The winner, for instance, came in with 9.87, which equalled Linford Christie’s second-best for a Briton. Fastest ever is Zharnel Hughes, on 9.83.

Olatunde, who’s attached to the Tallagh club in Dublin, would have needed to go faster to qualify for the World Championships, but already he’s inside the mark for next year’s European Championship in Birmingham. 

His long-term ambition, like Kate O’Connor’s, is to wear the green singlet in Los Angeles.

Katie-George Dunlevy, whose partnership with Eve McCrystal earned the pair many Olympic and World Championships medals, continues to sparkle in paracycling.

Now paired with Wexford’s Linda Kelly following McCrystal’s retirement, the London-based 43-year-old added to her collection with victory in the World Championship in Belgium just over a week ago. She’s undecided about the next Olympics.