Bravado-free Israel Olatunde sets sights on Irish sprinting records

Sprinters can be loud, considerably arrogant and uncomfortably puffed up with a sense of their own self-importance. Israel Olatunde is naturally soft-spoken, engaging and unconsciously devoid of all vanities. “I do have a bit of an ego,” he assures me.

He is the reigning Irish senior 100 metres champion, Olatunde winning that title in Santry last June, a month after turning 19; in the next event, Rhasidat Adeleke won the women’s senior 100 metres title, two months before she turned 19, ensuring both senior sprint titles in Ireland belonged to teenagers, surely a first, with plenty of other similarities though.

Four years earlier, Gina-Apke Moses helped pave the way, the first Irish woman to win a European Under-20 sprint gold medal, before others made a mark too, athletes like Patience Jumbo-Gula, and Joseph Ojewumi, whose parents also hailed from Nigeria. Together they’ve been the taste of the new generation, and going places fast.

“It’s never too soon, but I wouldn’t say it’s my main goal. Right now, my only goal now is to run as fast as I can. If I do that the records will come, over the years, they will fall. Loads of respect for Paul Hession, Irish records at 60m, 100m, and 200m. That’s so impressive, honestly, I’m quite baffled how he was able to do that, a class athlete. But records are meant to be broken, it just means something right is being doing in the sport.

“I’m not too sure what it is, there is that great sprint culture in Nigeria. Like winning a silver medal in the 4x100m back in 1992 Olympics. And if you do have that natural ability, you want to try to explore it, see how far you can go. “I played a lot, GAA, soccer, basketball, dabbled in a lot. I did soccer from first year to third, that’s all I focused on. I just fell out of love with it, things just didn’t work out. I was always one of the strongest, fastest, but I’ve two left feet, no technical ability at all. At one point I realised this just isn’t for me, no matter how hard I tried. It was time to find something else.

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