Class of 2018: Sophie O'Sullivan on Paris reunion with Irish track stars Rhasidat Adeleke and Sarah Healy
Cobh runner made her Olympic debut 24 years after her mother Sonia won silver in Sydney
Paris 2024 and the class of 2018...Six years ago, Sophie O’Sullivan, Sarah Healy and Rhasidat Adeleke went to Hungary for the European Under-18 championships. They ended the week on the front pages of the national press after bringing home two golds and a silver.
Six years on and Adeleke was first to make it to the Olympic stage on Monday. On Tuesday, O’Sullivan and Healy made their own bows in Paris. Adeleke is 21, O’Sullivan is 22 and Healy is 23. All three will run in the Stade de France at the Olympic Games on Wednesday.
“We’ve not really (talked about it), but it's great,” says O’Sullivan. “It is kinda funny that there’s sort of that one age, they seem to be all coming through together.
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“I think it’s a credit to those junior championships, all those little stepping stones, they can help people get some experience.
“It’s somewhere you can get a win and get a bit of confidence and build. It's a good thing.”
Six years ago, O’Sullivan won 800m silver at U18 level in Gyor, Hungary.
It was a week when an exciting new era for Irish athletics came into view with Adeleke winning 200m gold and Healy taking the 1500m title at U18 level.
O’Sullivan watched Adeleke win her 400m heat in Paris on Monday. On Tuesday, it was her turn.
She was first up on the starting line at 10.06am local time for the 1500 heats in front of another packed crowd at the Stade de France.
It came 24 years after her mother Sonia won silver for Ireland at the Sydney Olympics, but she admits there was no last minute pep talk from her mother. Just support.
“To be honest I actually just saw her yesterday… and today… she didn’t really say too much about it,” says O’Sullivan. “Just, ‘See ya, good luck!’
“I think at the end of the day it’s just another race and you’ve run the race before and there’s not much you can tell someone about how to run their best.”
Her dad Nic Bideau is in Paris too — the Melbourne coach here to work with Australian runner Georgia Griffith, amongst others.
Earlier in the week O’Sullivan called over to the Australian camp and went jogging with Griffith and she was glad to see her in her heat on Tuesday.
“It was really nice to have her in there as well because I’ve been training with her the last few months,” says O’Sullivan.
“So it’s nice to have a familiar face in the corner, warming up with her.”
Born and raised Down Under, O’Sullivan won the Under-17 Australian championships over 800m and 1500m and could’ve been here in an Australian vest.
Instead she opted for Ireland and won her first national senior title in the Cobh colours at Morton Stadium in June.
On Tuesday, she was on the start line picking out the Irish flags in the stadium, dressed in green with matching eye shadow for the occasion.
“I’ve been liking a bit of colour lately,” she says, laughing. “I think it brings a bit of fun to it, it kind of makes it more about the team and things.
“I think this season I’ve been trying to add a bit of that to whatever I wear and match it in. It passes a bit of time in the morning as well!”
Last year she ran a personal best on her debut at the World Championships in Budapest and did the same on Tuesday on her Olympic debut.
“I was kind of surprised, I didn’t think we were going that fast at all. So I was surprised to go around four minutes,” she says.
“I was just focussed on the six people. Obviously if you run the best you’ve ever run it’s great. You can’t not be grateful for that.
“I thought I had it with 200 to go and I just got caught up behind someone and tripped a little bit.
“I got going again but it was enough to lose a little bit too much.”
She finished seventh, just one place outside qualification for the semi-finals and goes again in the repechage today. Griffith finished fourth and goes through.
Healy will be in the repechage too after she also finished seventh in her own heat.
The Dubliner looked to have secured a place in the semi-final after a controlled run, but tied up in the final strides and was just edged out of qualification.
“It wasn’t great, to be honest I’m really disappointed,” says Healy. “I didn’t feel very good and then I tied up at the end which has now happened to me twice so I’m like, what’s going on?
“It’s really hard. I came into this in such great shape and I should have been able to do that comfortably, the paces, and everything just felt really hard.
“I was hanging on to sixth, I was trying my best and had I known there was someone right there I probably could have hung on for that sixth spot.
“But all the same I was not happy with how I felt regardless and obviously now I have to just try to get through tomorrow, it’s confusing, to be honest.”
Healy is coached by Jenny Meadows and Trevor Painter — the same pair that work with Britain's Keely Hodgkinson, winner of the 800m title in Paris on Monday night.
It was Hodgkinson who edged out O’Sullivan for European U18 gold in Hungary in 2018 during a week that launched several careers.
Six years on, that week is already having a big bearing on the 2024 Olympics. There could be much more to come.
Adeleke runs on Wednesday night in the first semi-final of the 400m (7.45pm Irish time), while O’Sullivan and Healy will be on track for the 1500m repechage (11.45am Irish time) earlier in the day.
It’s another chance for the Class of 2018 to shine on the biggest stage. O'Sullivan is ready to take her chance.
“I really like it, I am always more of a position-and-placing kind of person rather than times,” says O’Sullivan. “It suits me well, I find it easier to think of being in the top three or six rather than going quick.
"I like that it makes the race a bit more tactical. It's still quick but it's easier to think like that.”
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