Fastest Irishman alive Israel Olatunde eyes up global success
Israel Olatunde posts 10.12 shaving 0.05 of his 100m Irish record
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Israel Olatunde confirmed himself as the fastest Irishman ever, smashing his own Irish 100m record in London on Sunday night.
His 10.12 was a significant improvement on his previous time of 10.17 set in the 2022 European Championships final - that time breaking the then record of 10.18 set by Paul Hession in Vaasa, Sweden in 2007.
"It is good news to have pushed on from that mark I set a couple of years ago, to take Ireland sprinting into kind of a new dimension again after missing the Olympics," Otalunde told RTE's Six-One News.
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"That was disappointing but the show has to go on, I have to keep training, keep racing, keep pushing.
"My coach Daniel Kilgallon, we planned this race, it was a good opportunity to show what we had been working on over the last few months. It is really cool to kind of see how everything played out."
The run has bridged a 'two year gap' from the 2022 European Championship final to not qualifying for the 2023 European Champions final and the 2024 Olympics and is a sign of a significant return to form.
"I guess the biggest thing is that my confidence has grown over the summer, times have been dropping and it has led to a new Irish record.
"The standard is 10 seconds flat and I have run 10.12 so I am literally a metre away from getting qualification for global championships.
"That's my goal, that's my dream and I am inching closer and closer to that."
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