Chidi Okezie stormed to a 45.06 personal best to win his first African Games gold after being pushed to third place in two African Championships and the 2019 African Games.
He disclosed that 1987 African Games champion and national record holder in the 400m Innocent Egbunike inspired him to do the time in Accra, Ghana and now he wants to go back home and improve on the 45.06 with Egbunike’s 44.17seconds run as a benchmark.
“Innocent is one of my role models, I’ve talked to him about running 44.17 as soon as I can. But he tells me to keep winning my races and not to worry about the time, it would come when it would come,” said Okezie.
“He messaged me on the night/morning of the race and what he told me stuck with me throughout the day.”
During the 400m run Okezie was the dark horse, all attention was on defending champion Muzala Samukonga of Zambia and Tidiane Diouf of Senegal who had done better times in the semi-final heats. And they were leading all the way till the last curve, when Okezie changed gears and put his nose in front, he powered home to run a season and personal best.
“I got tired of winning bronze and I told myself this time I got to make a difference,” said Okezie.
He added that his focus is now to qualify for the Olympics after missing the mark with fractions of seconds.
“I Need to run 45.00 to qualify for the Olympics. I’ve always wanted to run and I have to go back to the drawing board to do more work and by God’s grace we can do great things in the coming months.”
