Nigerian sprints duo Kayinsola Ajayi and Favour Ashe will attempt to make the final of the men’s 100m when they compete in Sunday’s semi final of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Both athletes making their Olympics debut are faced with a herculean task in the semi-final and they have to come up with their A performances to book a place in the final. Ajayi had llooked more promising in the heats concluded Saturday morning.
The 19 years-old Ajayi narrowly missed his personal best of 10.00 seconds in his heat, which he won beating Olympics defending champion, Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy with a time of 10.02, which was the Nigerian fastest time in Olympics 100m preliminary rounds. Davidson Ezinwa ran 10.03 secs at the Barcelona Olympics.
Favour Ashe on the hand finished fourth in his heat with a time of 10.16secs. He has to do much more than his personal best of 9.94secs to make a case for the final also on Sunday.
Top contenders for the race include Jamaica’s Oblique Seville he won heat 4 with a time of 9.99s. Great Britain’s Louie Hinchliffe 9.98s, and Noah Lyles of the US ran a modest 10.04secs.
Meanwhile “angry bird” Favour Ofili, will take to the tracks Sunday to run in the women’s 200m after her rants in social media for missing the women’s 100m.
She would be facing the likes of Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Gina Bass of Gambia. Ofili needs to prove that she can make a difference to justify her outbursts.
According to reports she was paid a visit at Games Village Friday by psychologist Dr. Emmanuel Ikpeme in a bid to prepare her mentally for the event.
She took to social media to demand punishment for the technical officials who cost a place in the 100m event.
