Okagbare shines in Hungary as Simbine smashes Fasuba’s African record

Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare has continued her fine showing ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics with another fine showing in Budapest, Hungary on Tuesday.

South Africa’s Akani Simbine on his part emerged the new king of speed in Africa following his sensational 9.84 seconds run to win the blue ribband event at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial meeting in Budapest, Hungary also on Tuesday.

Simbine’s time is a hundreth of a second faster than the 9.85 seconds Nigeria’s Olusoji Fasuba ran in 2006 in Doha, Qatar.

The South African certainly has lay down a marker for the event at the delayed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo which starts later this month.

All eyes had been on Fasuba’s compatriot, Divine Oduduru as the man capable of rewriting the record after he scorched to a 9.86 seconds finish to win the NCAA 100m title in 2019 but Simbine has shown he deserves to be crowned the fastest man of all-time in Africa.

The South African came back after his incredible feat in the 100m to race past Oduduru in the 200m to successfully complete a sprint double.

The Nigeria 200m record holder, competing for the first time since May 31 looked to be coasting home after leading for all of 150m until Simbine changed into a new gear and ran past him to stop the clock at 20.25 seconds. The Nigerian was third in 20.38 seconds.

With less than a month to the start of the athletics event of the Olympic Games, Oduduru  will have to find the form that saw him run inside 20 seconds (19.88) two months ago to stand a chance of making his first individual Olympic final after stumbling out at the semifinal stage five years ago in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where he made his debut at the Games.

Meanwhile, Nigerian fastest woman of all-time and eight time national 100m queen,Blessing Okagbare raced to a new 10.89 seconds personal season’s best to place fourth in the 100m event Tuesday at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial meeting in Budapest, Hungary.

The Nigerian, looking to make it a hat-trick of 100m wins at the meeting could not race past two Jamaicans, 2016 Rio Olympics double sprint champion, Elaine Thompson-Herah (10.71) and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.82) as well as fellow African, Ivory Coast’s Marie-Jose Ta Lou who ran 10.86 seconds to place third. Okagbare won the event in 2016 and 2017 but faced her biggest test ever at the event on Tuesday.

 While she failed to win for the third time in Budapest, she however returned with a personal season’s best, her fifth legal run inside 11 seconds this season and 23rd overall since she first broke 11 seconds at the Aviva Grand Prix in Crystal Palace, London in July 2012.

Okagbare will now head to the Stade Louis 11 stadium in Monaco for the Herculis Zepter Diamond League meeting on Friday with her sight set on becoming the first Nigerian nay African woman to break 22 seconds in the half lap race.

Shot putter, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi came fourth in his event in his first competition in the European circuit this year.
The reigning African Games champion threw a distance of 21.43m to place fourth behind Walsh Tomas of New Zealand (22.22m), Milhajevic Filip of Croatia  (21.77m) and Nigerian-American, Josh Awotunde (21.70m).

Enekwechi made it all the way to the final two years ago at the World Athletics Championship and will be hoping for a repeat performance in Tokyo when he makes his Olympics debut.