Breaking 30-year-old African 4x100m Record, A Big Deal, Says Ofili

OREGON 2022 FALLOUT 

Duro Ikhazuagbe 

Nigerian athletes may not have recorded appreciable impact at the World Athletics Championships concluded early hours of this morning in Eugene, Oregon, USA, the African record in the women’s 4x100m relay erased, appears enough consolation for the young ladies that made it happen.

Nigeria ran a new 42.22secs to finish in fourth position behind USA who stunned Jamaica and Germany to take the gold.

The previous African record of 42.39secs was set by the Christy Opara-Thompson, Beatrice Otondu, Faith Idehen and Mary Onyali-Omagbemi at Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992.

On August 7, 1992 inside the Estadio Olimpico in Barcelona, the quartet of Beatrice Utondu, Faith Idehen, Christy Opara-Thompson and Mary Onyali-Omagbemi ran an incredible race to put Nigeria on the podium. It was Nigeria’s second relay medal at the Olympiad after the Innocent Egbunike led 4x400m men’s quartet had done so eight years earlier at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

What made Nigeria’s feat more spectacular at the Barcelona Games was the manner Onyali and teammates celebrated that bronze medal. Pictures from that celebration made news around the world.

It is against this backdrop that despite the quartet of Rosemary Chukwuma, Favour Ofili, Grace Nwokocha and Joy Udo-Gabriel not making it to the podium in perhaps their first major competition together, breaking the African women’s 4x100m relay record, was a big deal.

“Breaking the African record is a big deal for us, because we didn’t practice until two weeks ago,” gushed Ofili who last April send Blessing Okagbare’s four-old national 200m record to archive reporters early hours of yesterday.

The 19-year-old sprinter however admits missing a podium appearance that would have been icing on her cake.

“It’s sad missing the podium, but breaking the record? I’m grateful for that.”

Before the quartet’s record breaking race in the sprint relay, Tobi Amusan, posted 12.40 seconds to set a new African women’s 100m hurdles record to surprise even herself in the heat stage of the event.

Amusan said after posting the time to qualify for the semi final of the Oregon 2022 concluded early hours of this morning that she was not really expecting it to happen.

“I really wasn’t expecting that (the African record),”. “My coach always says execute and let the time take care of itself. I’m happy, healthy and competing.”

Having finished fourth at both the last Olympics and World Championships, she  prayed to go at least one better in Eugene.

“It would be a dream come true, because I’ve always been in championship finals, and getting on the podium is going to be a reward for all my tears and pain over the years,” the Nigerian petit sprint hurdler explained.

Amusan’s  time is two hundreth of a second faster than the 12.44 seconds Glory Alozie ran to win a silver medal in the event 23 years ago in Seville, Spain.

Amusan has also smashed four of the six records Alozie set before switching allegiance to Spain after the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

The 25-year-old Amusan started with Alozie’s 12.74 seconds African Games record set in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1999. 

She broke the Games record twice in 2019 in Rabat, Morocco. She ran 12.69 seconds to win her semifinal heat before running a hundreth of a second faster in the final to win the gold at the African Games.

Next was the 12.68 seconds Alozie ran twice to win a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia which made her the fastest Nigerian in the history of the quadrennial event. 

Amusan smashed that in 2021 in Tokyo with her 12.60 seconds performance which fetched her a fourth place finish in the event.

The reigning Commonwealth Games champion also consigned to history the 12.44 seconds Alozie ran at the Monaco Diamond League in 1998. The time, which also doubled as the African record at the time was the fastest by an Nigerian in the history of the event until September 2021 when Amusan ran 12.42 seconds to achieve a treble.