Rhasidat Adeleke will receive $15,000 USD after she was named by the Olympic Federation of Ireland today as one of the recipients of a Team Ireland Paris scholarship.
Adeleke, who is a member of Tallaght AC is currently based in the United States at Texas University where she is studying Economics. The 19-year-old holds the Irish national senior records at 60m, 200m, 300m, and 400m and has already had a sensational year.
Most recently Adeleke broke Joanne Cuddihy’s fifteen-year-old national record in the 400m, in what was just her second race over the distance running 50.70s.
Last summer she won double gold at the European Junior Championships in Estonia over 100m and 200m cementing herself as an athlete to watch for many years to come.
Prior to last years stunning European double, Adeleke had won the European Youth 200m title in 2018, and double sprint gold at the European Youth Olympics in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2019.
It is expected that the Dubliner will compete at this summer’s World Championships in Eugene, Oregon and European Championships in Munich, Germany where she will be looking to put in strong individual performances and may also be an integral part of our Women’s and Mixed relay teams.
In total, $350,000 will be distributed to Olympic hopefuls across twelve sports. The Irish Women’s Hockey team were awarded the team grant of $100,000, with fifteen individual grants totalling at $250,000 being awarded to individual athletes.
It is hoped that the funding will support the athletes on the road to Paris and assist with their attempts to qualify. Adeleke was nominated by Athletics Ireland and will be looking to make her first Olympic Games in just two years’ time.
Gavin Noble, Chef de Mission for Team Ireland at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games said the funding showed that the team were looking to build on their performance at the last Olympics.
“Thirty-five individual nominations were received from nineteen member sports for the Paris Scholarship fund, and today we are delighted to formally announce our Paris scholars and of course our support of the women’s hockey team. In the Tokyo cycle, twelve scholarships were awarded, and from those nine athletes qualified for the Games, with two finalists at the Tokyo Olympics. Naturally, we are aiming to build on those results. Through the support of the International Olympic Committee Solidarity Fund, and with the additional backing of Permanent TSB, Allianz, and Deloitte, we are able to fund more athletes, to a higher level than ever before, and it is very much part of our performance and commercial strategy that we continue to move in this direction,” he said.
A full list of the Team Ireland Paris Scholarship recipients can be found here: https://olympics.ie/team-ireland-paris-scholarship-recipients-announced/
