Adeleke awarded Paris Olympic Scholarship

The Olympic Federation of Ireland today revealed the recipients of the Paris Scholarships, as preparations are already underway for the Summer Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

The funding for the grants is primarily provided through a combination of International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Olympic Solidarity programme funding and OFI funding, split $250,000 from the IOC and the remaining $100,000 from the OFI to allow for a greater number of scholarship awards in Ireland.

The scholarships aim to support the athletes in their preparation for Paris, and to assist on the qualification journey. Athletes were nominated by the national federations and are representative of a mix of Olympians targeting a second Games, and athletes targeting an Olympic debut.

Making the announcement, Team Ireland Chef de Mission for the Paris Olympic Games, Gavin Noble, said,

“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.”

INDIVIDUAL GRANT – $15,000

Rhasidat Adeleke
Rhasidat (who doesn’t turn 20 until August 2022) is from Tallaght and is already blazing a trail for Irish sprinting. In 2018, aged just15, she became the European Youth (U18) 200m champion in Hungary. In 2019 she won double sprint gold at the European Youth Olympics in Baku. In July 2021 she became a double European Junior (U20) champion in Tallinn, setting a new Irish senior 200m record (22:90). She took up a scholarship at the University of Texas in 2021 and, in 2022, has already set the Irish 60m record of 7:19 at the US Collegiate Indoor Championships (NCAAs) where she was fourth in the 200m and eighth in the 60m final. In April , at the Texas A&M meet, Rhasidat lowered the Irish senior 200m record to 22:59 and, in May, in only her second race over 400m, her 50:70 (at the Big 12 Championships) broke Joanne Cuddihy’s 15-year-old Irish 400m record (50:73). Rhasidat will make her senior debut for Ireland this summer at the World Championships in Oregon  (July 15-24) and European Championships in Munich (August15-21).