Sonia O’Sullivan: The last temptation of this track and field season

The Olympics has always been the ultimate grand finale of the athletics season. And after all the effort to qualify and then turn up in the best shape possible, it can all seem a little anti-climactic and underwhelming in the weeks and months afterwards.
It’s been close to five weeks since the closing ceremony in Paris and that difficult task of trying to stay motivated physically and (more likely) mentally has meant that some athletes have already walked away happy with their lot.
The meetings that take place after any big championship, particularly after the Olympics, can be a mixed bag. Some athletes are still out for redemption if their Olympic medal hopes didn’t quite play out as they wished, and that can also be a source of some financial consolation.
This weekend the season culminates with the Diamond League final in Brussels, a venue where some athletes have finished their season on a high. Most notably for Ireland, this is where Ciara Mageean broke the Irish 1,500m record the last two years in a row, running her 3:55.87 this time last year.
Sadly, Mageean’s season ended before she even got to race in the Olympics, an Achilles tendon injury forcing her to withdraw on the eve of the 1,500m heats in Paris. So this year there will be just one Irish athlete competing and, unsurprisingly, it’s our current best athlete Rhasidat Adeleke.
Adeleke will be trying one more time to crash into the top three in the 400m, her chances improved this time given the absence of Natalia Kaczmarek, who has already stepped away after finishing up her season at home in Poland, where she was celebrated after winning the bronze medal in Paris just ahead of Adeleke.
It is a bit more difficult to step away when you don’t quite achieve the targets you set for yourself. That’s probably the one thing that is keeping Adeleke focussed as there is still a chance for her to get ahead of one or both of her other main rivals, hoping they’ve been enjoying the celebrations, and maybe a slight edge taken off their focus as the season shuts down.
It would also be a huge boost to her confidence and motivation going into the winter if she could beat either the Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic or silver medallist Salwa Eid Naser from Bahrain.
However, the whole 400m field in Brussels could be upstaged just 10 minutes earlier, when Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone from the US takes on an invitational race set up especially for her as she did not qualify for the final due to not racing a single Diamond League event this year. McLaughlin-Levrone has said her target is to set a personal best, which if it transpires could be the fastest time run in the world this year.
One possible drawback for Adeleke is that she has returned to her training base in Texas twice since Paris, and the ripple effect of recovering and resetting from each transatlantic flight can wear down an athlete.
This may be something that Adeleke might need to consider looking ahead to future World and Olympic championships. No matter how you travel, you have to respect what crossing time zones does to your body.
There has been talk of the athletics season ending in future years at the main championship event. That’s an easy decision in 2025, with the World Championships in Tokyo not taking place until September 13th -21st.
For the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the dates are already set for mid-July, so it’s hard to imagine the whole Diamond League season finishing up by then, and also squeezing in the Continental Tour Gold, Silver and Bronze meetings, along with the small challenger meetings that are a big attraction in many small towns throughout Europe.
These typically take place in August and September when the athletes are more relaxed and can enjoy the local surroundings as well as putting on a show for the local fans. And it would be detrimental to the sport to have them wiped out by a shortened season, or on top of the new grand slam events in the US due to be introduced in 2025 by Michael Johnson.
Even though the Diamond League final is the culmination of the season, there is one remaining invitational event taking place in New York City on September 26th, where some of the best women athletes have been invited to race for the biggest prize money ever on offer.
Known as the Athlos meeting, and started up by Alexis Ohanian, husband of Serena Williams, there are just six track events scheduled where the first prize in every race is $60,000 (€54,000).
They will also have a larger than normal travel budget, allowing all athletes to travel business class. It’s like a crock of gold bonus pot at the end of a very long season, even if the results will mean very little apart from the elevation of the appreciation of women in sport, in the first-of-its-kind women-only track meeting.
In contrast, the winner’s pay cheque for the Diamond League Final is $30,000, even though the level and status of the competition is a lot greater and in front of a sellout crowd at the King Baudouin Stadium.
There’s lots I’m still looking forward to, such as Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo continuing his dominant form over his American rivals, Mondo Duplantis going for his 11th world record in the pole vault, or Jakob Ingebrigtsen trying one more time this season to come out on top over 1,500m.
Many believe it is high time to raise the bar and increase the prize money on offer. After all, some athletes are being paid quite a bit less to win their event in 2024 than they were back in 2000, and that’s hardly progress.