2 weeks Ago
It was a record that Efrem Gidey had long seemed destined to achieve, and in California on Saturday night the 24-year-old didn’t so much break it as obliterate it. Gidey clocked 27:26.95 to finish 13th at ‘The Ten’ in San Juan Capistrano, smashing Alistair Cragg’s Irish 10,000m record of 27:39.
55, which had stood since 2007. The race was won by Kenya’s Ishmael Kipkurui, a student at the University of New Mexico, with Gidey taking just over 13 seconds off his previous best of 27:40.02, which he ran in London last May.
It marks another step forward for the Clonliffe Harrier, who was born in Eritrea but fled the war-torn country in 2016, spending several months at a refugee camp in Calais before arriving in Ireland in March 2017 and seeking asylum. He later became an Irish citizen and made his international debut in green at the European Cross Country Championships in 2019, winning bronze in the U-20 race behind Norwegian star Jakob Ingebrigtsen. In 2022, he finished sixth over 10,000m at the European Championships in Munich.
After finishing his studies in business and logistics at Cathal Brugha FET College last year, he committed to full-time running and has made steady progress since, breaking the Irish half marathon record in Copenhagen last year with 1:00:51, and he started 2025 with another national record on the roads, clocking 27:43 for 10km in Valencia. His latest run will boost his chances of qualifying for the World Championships in Tokyo later this year, but Gidey is still some way short of the automatic entry standard of 27:00. However, he could secure a place via his world ranking, which is determined by his top two performances during the qualifying window, which opened in February last year and will close on 24 August.
Just 27 spots are available at the World Championships over 10,000m, with 19 eligible athletes already holding the automatic standard. Elsewhere, Rhasidat Adeleke opened her outdoor season at the Texas Relays on Saturday, the Dubliner anchoring a 4x400m team that included training partners Julien Alfred, Dina Asher-Smith and Ackelia Smith. Adeleke split 50.
78 on the anchor leg to bring them home to victory in 3:25.20. Having chosen to bypass the European and World Indoor Championships as she builds a foundation for the summer, Adeleke had just one competitive outing during the indoor season, clocking 1:30.
30 for 600m in Clemson, South Carolina. In Melbourne on Saturday night, Brian Fay ran 13:25.63 to finish seventh over 5000m at the Maurie Plant Meet, while Sophie O’Sullivan clocked 4:12.
91 to finish eighth over 1500m. Tokyo Olympian Nadia Power finished sixth over 800m in 2:06.58, with Cillian Kirwan fifth in the men’s 800m in 1:49.
07. Meanwhile, Athletics Ireland has announced a team of nine athletes for the inaugural edition of the European Running Championships in Leuven, Belgium on 12-13 April, with Gidey and Ann-Marie McGlynn racing the half marathon events. Seán Tobin, James Gormley, Keelan Kilrehill, Cormac Dalton, Niamh Allen, Shona Heaslip and Emily Haggard-Kearney will compete over 10km.
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