Israel Olatunde of UCD has become the fourth Irish athlete in a week to break an Irish U23 record. The reigning national champion Olatunde, clocked a time of 10.27 for 100m on Thursday evening at the Raiffeisen Open in Eisenstadt in Austria. Olatunde took the record previously held by Marcus Lawlor since 2017 that had stood at 10.3. The time also propels him to 3rd on the Irish All-Time list.
It is the second Irish U23 record of 2022 for the UCD man, his 6.62 clocking for 60m indoors in February was enough to break his own U23 record set only a month previous. The time was an agonising one hundredth of a second outside Paul Hession’s National Senior record. Hession is also the owner of the national 100m record which stands at 10.18 since June, 2007.
There was also a big personal best on the night in Austria from Olatunde’s training partner, Joseph Ojewumi of Tallaght A.C in the 100m. Ojewumi registered 10.44 in his heat, taking over two tenths of a second off his previous best. The Tallaght athlete would go on to finish 4th in the final in 10.55.
Of the four U23 records broken since last Saturday, three were by UCD athletes with Sarah Healy and Darragh McElhinney joining Olatunde in the record books in the past number of days. All three athletes will also be major contenders for national senior titles at the end of June.
Elsewhere in Europe on Thursday evening, Andrew Coscoran of the Dublin Track Club was in action in Norway at the Jessheim 1500m elite meeting as he continued his charge towards qualification for the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon this July. The Balbriggan man running a smart race, only hitting the front rounding the final bend to take the win in 3:36.82.
Mullingar’s Sharlene Mawdsley made the trip to France for the Montreuil International Meeting in the east of Paris, registering 53.61 for 400m.
