Rhasidat Adeleke and Sophie O’Sullivan to close out track season at lucrative London Athlos meet

The lure of one last track race and a guaranteed pay cheque will bring Rhasidat Adeleke and Sophie O’Sullivan to the StoneX Stadium in north London on Friday evening, the venue for the first European staging of the all-women Athlos athletics meeting.Entries for the six premium events, each featuring six athletes, were decided by invitation only. The Athlos meeting series is part of founder Alexis Ohanian’s wider ambition to develop more elite women-only sporting events across the globe, with the US entrepreneur and investor putting up a lucrative prize purse to match.There’s set to be a sell-out crowd at the 10,500-capacity StoneX Stadium, which is home to Premiership side Saracens. The only Irish athletes taking part, Adeleke will race the 200m, while O’Sullivan goes in the 800m, with the meeting also featuring the 100m, 400m, mile, 100m hurdles, and long jump. Each winner will get $65,000 (€57,000), with $35,000 (€30,000) for second, $20,000 (€17,000) for third, down to $6,000 (€5,000) for sixth.Adeleke has been concentrating on the 200m since winning silver at the European Championships in Birmingham last month, lining up here against Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas from the US. O’Sullivan broke the two-minute barrier in her last three 800m races, earning her an invite for London where she’ll be up against Britain’s Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson.READ MOREAdeleke was short of her recent best when clocking 22.81 seconds at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest last weekend, finishing fifth in her heat to miss out on the final. Adeleke ran 22.28 to win silver in Birmingham, improving her own national record, and the 24-year-old Dublin sprinter will be keen to get closer to that time when she races on Friday evening (9.11pm).Sarah Healy and Sophie O'Sullivan during the 1,500m final at the European Championships last month. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho O’Sullivan, also 24, improved her 800m personal best to 1:58.60 in Brescia, Italy last month, just 0.9 off the Irish record held by Ciara Mageean. While Hodgkinson is the favourite, O’Sullivan could test that Irish record in her last track race of 2026.Many top athletes have already called time on their track seasons, including European 800m champion Audrey Werro, and four-time European sprint champion Amy Hunt. A second Athlos meeting was originally scheduled for New York on October 2nd, at which Adeleke was also due to race, but Ohanian himself pulled the plug after several athletes said it would be too late in the season.This hasn’t deterred Ohanian, the husband of US tennis player Serena Williams, who intends to grow the series again next year in the build-up to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. “We know we’re entering into something really ambitious,” Ohanian said. “Ultimately we want to build a league around athletics, which historically has not had commercial success.”Friday evening’s meeting will be streamed live on the Athlos YouTube channel.O’Sullivan was originally selected to take part in this weekend’s World Athletics Road Racing Championships around the streets of Copenhagen, where there are six world titles on offer for men and women in the mile, 5km, and half-marathon events.The eight-strong Irish team includes Andrew Coscoran, who will race Saturday’s men’s mile after winning European bronze in the 1,500m last month, joined by fellow Dubliner Cathal Doyle.Sarah Healy will race the women’s mile on Saturday, following her fourth and fifth-place finishes in the 5,000m and 1,500m in Birmingham respectively, while Cork’s Laura Nicholson has been called in to replace O’Sullivan. Also among the filed will be Ethiopia’s two-time world indoor champion Freweyni Hailu, and Australia’s Linden Hall.In the men’s 5km on Saturday, Brian Fay and Darragh McElhinney will race against Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, a week after his win in the 5,000m at the Ultimate Championship.And on Sunday, attention turns to the half-marathons, with Peter Lynch using the event as part of his build-up to the New York marathon in November. The Kilkenny man, who improved the Irish marathon record to 2:06:08 when finishing ninth in London in April, will be joined on the start line by former Irish marathon record holder Hiko Tonosa, back racing after an extended period of injury.The elite races will feature 496 athletes representing 85 World Athletics member federations.