Alfred, Longhorn friends on track for Olympic gold | Bohls
Julien Alfred and her friends finished first Saturday afternoon.
It’s a very customary position that the Texas Longhorns track and field legend has found herself in of late.
So when she and three teammates, including two other former Texas stars in Rhasidat Adeleke and Lanae Thomas, crossed the finish line ahead of Arkansas, a current Longhorns foursome and Oklahoma to win the 800-meter relay, they did so in grand style. With authority.
They set a world record.
Shattered it actually.
They bested the mark established by the USA Blue team that included later-disgraced, five-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones at the Penn Relays in 2000.
Then again, they didn't.
Well, technically, they didn’t because World Athletics doesn’t recognize relay records set by multi-national athletes. But it sure looked like it happened for real to the screaming fans, however.
Because Alfred hails from Saint Lucia, Adeleke has Irish roots, Thomas was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and Dina Asher-Smith runs out of Great Britain, their spectacular time of 1 minute, 27.05 seconds stands as only a Texas Relays record and not an accepted world-wide mark as the pedestrian 2000 time of 1:27.46.
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This team smoked the field in their first outdoor competition and won going away with Alfred pulling the anchor-leg honors.
Winning it was always the thing.
“That was the plan three months ago,” said Longhorns men’s and women’s track coach Edrick Floréal, who trains all four of the runners. “We’ve talked about it that everybody’s got to average 21.7 seconds. I knew it was possible to get it done when Dina led off at 21.7. They broke it by over half a second.”
As Alfred and her track mates said about the inadmissibility of an official record, no biggie.
Best in the world still has a nice ring to it.
“At least we know now what it takes,” Alfred said. “So it’s just a matter of trusting (Flo) and trusting each other.”
Record or no record, they know what they did on this breezy, overcast afternoon to wow the estimated Mike Meyers Stadium crowd of about 9,000.
“Honestly, we know we ran the fastest time ever,” Adeleke said, dismissing any frustration. “We know ourselves that we achieved that. Doesn’t need to be an official record, but I guess it’s a world’s best so the world knows.”
Another thing the world has known for quite some time is how talented this group is.
And possibly about to get even more acclaim, come this summer at a pretty prestigious event overseas.
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All four runners are serious Olympic contenders in Paris in their respective events, if not quite the prohibitive favorites. The foursome also easily won the 1600-meter relay in 3:25.31 Saturday, beating the next-fastest group by 56 seconds.
Adeleke is the reigning NCAA 400-meter champion and holds six Irish national records. Asher-Smith won the 200 meters at the World Championships in 2019 and took home a bronze at the Tokyo Olympics. Thomas ran the second fastest time in the 200 in a meet last year and was runner-up in last year’s NCAA Indoor Championship to Alfred.
Alfred, of course, is the most celebrated of the quartet. The soft-spoken 22-year-old took the track world by storm the last couple of years. She’s a blur in cleats, using her powerful thighs to breeze by her rivals.
She is the reigning NCAA indoor champion in the 60-meters and 200-meters and the 2023 NCAA outdoor champion in the 100 meters and 200 meters.
Last year she joined 2016 winner and indoor and outdoor 400-meter champion Courtney Okolo to become only the second Longhorn ever to win the Bowerman Award, which goes to the most outstanding collegiate track and field athlete of the year. Alfred’s also the fastest woman in the world this year over 60 meters and 200 meters.
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All four of the women are training in Austin under Floreal, who has worked hard on getting Alfred more comfortable as a pro in the limelight.
“She’s beginning to embrace who she is,” Floréal said. “It’s taken us a while to get to that point. I think she’ll accept that fact because we’ve dealt with some anxiety. I wanted her to understand the pressure to get to the Olympics in Paris and be able to perform.”
Alfred has never competed in Paris or even been to the City of Light. She hasn’t been back to her country land since 2022 but plans to return to Saint Lucia, a Caribbean Island nation of about 180,000, to launch her Julien Alfred Foundation to try to get youth more involved in sports and academics.
“I’m just going to try to do my best,” Alfred said.
She notes that she’s much stronger than she was at Texas and concentrated on improving in that area so she wouldn’t wrestle with fatigue during races.
“I’m a whole lot stronger,” she said. “So I don’t tend to break down the last 40 meters, 30 meters. It’s a matter of just holding my form at the end.”
Alfred loves competing at Myers Stadium because she holds such stirring emotions about helping lead Texas to its national championship here less than a year ago.
So which promises to be the tougher event at Paris, the 100 meters or 200 meters?
“Both,” she said, laughing. “It’s a quality field of women.”
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Does she feel much pressure to perform at the Olympic Games, in part because the small country of Saint Lucia has never won a medal there in its history?
“From the outside? No,” she said. “From myself, yes.”
She won’t be able to compete in relays because her native land won’t qualify enough runners to Paris. Saint Lucia will be represented only by her and former Kansas 400-meter specialist Michael Joseph.
Does she consider all the attention overwhelming at times?
“I’m fine,” Alfred said. “I’m used to it now.”
The tall, lanky Adeleke currently ranks fourth in the world in her specialty event, the 400 meters. But the pain from not medaling at last year’s World Championships still lingers.
She finished fourth, a highly disappointing finish.
“I missed the podium by one spot. That was really sad,” Adeleke said. “It was a hard pill to swallow. But I just use it as a learning experience. I’ve kind of applied that feeling that you don’t want to feel that way again. I’m just more prepared now.”
Adeleke has adjusted her thinking about race tactics and abandoned starting slower and relying on a big kick. Now she works on faster starts out of the blocks and maintaining that speed to the end.
Unlike Alfred, she’s been to Paris before, but only as a 10-year-old on a trip there with her family. She can remember taking in the Eiffel Tower and spending time at Disneyland there.
“Yeah, I enjoyed Disneyland more,” she said.
This, however, figures to be more of a business trip.
“I’m living my dream,” Adeleke said.
And how would she assess Alfred’s chances of medaling in the 100 meters and 200 meters at the Games?
“She’s got this in the bag,” Adeleke said matter-of-factly.
While their record-but-not-a-record relay performance Saturday won’t find its way into the official books, it’ll do wonders for their confidence moving forward. And that’s all their coach really wanted to help lay the foundation for a successful summer.
“They broke the record by half a second, but it’s more important that it sets them up for Paris,” Floréal said. “I just wanted them to walk off like ‘OK, we’re good.’ Training-wise, progression wise. The plan is to get these athletes in the right mindset to get the very best out of them.”
Just don’t get Floréal started on expectations. He’s always setting the bar high but doesn’t want to jinx anything.
“I think it’s too early to tell,” Floréal said. “Those talks sometimes can backfire. Just deal with today.”
But if Alfred and Adeleke don’t return with a medal?
“I’ll be disappointed,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Julien Alfred, Rhasidat Adeleke set sights on Olympic medals
