Bori Akinola smashed the Irish 60m record at the Belgrade Indoor Meeting in Serbia on Wednesday, clocking 6.54 to carve three hundredths of a second off the previous record.
Akinola finished second at the World Indoor Tour Gold meeting behind Hungary’s Illovszky (6.52), smashing the previous Irish record of 6.57, set by Israel Olatunde in 2023.
It marks a massive breakthrough for the 24-year-old UCD athlete, whose previous best of 6.59 was run in Glasgow last month.
Akinola, the reigning Irish 60m and 100m champion, kept his cool in Belgrade after four recalls in the 60m final and made a lightning start, just getting pipped by Illovszky in the closing metres.
Akinola had already ticked off the qualifying standard for the World Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland next month and will continue his build-up to the event in the weeks ahead, racing at the 123.ie National Senior Indoor Championships in Dublin on Sunday, March 1.
Meanwhile, Rhasidat Adeleke looks set to open her season at the Don Kirby Elite in Albuquerque on Saturday, where she is entered for the 60m.
The Dubliner, who has been based in Texas since 2021, set the Irish 60m record of 7.15 at the same venue in 2024. It would be her first race since July last year, when she clocked 22.52 for 200m at the London Diamond League. She later withdrew from the nationals and the World Championships in Tokyo due to injury, but recently said those issues are now behind her.
“It was really hard, it was a very different year for me,” she told RTÉ in December. “I’m not someone who is usually injury prone and we took things to the next level training wise. I think my body was just breaking down, every time that I would get back healthy there was another niggle.
“I just wasn’t able to get a consistent training cycle. Training has been going so well for the last few weeks. We have been making the relevant adjustments that I needed to make.”
