S’Africa’s Simbine Erases Fasuba’s 15-year-old 100m African Record

*Okagbare races to new 10.89 personal season’s best in 100m

Duro Ikhazuagbe

Olusoji Adetokunbo Fasuba’s 15-year reign as Africa’s fastest man ended yesterday with South Africa’s Akani Simbine stepping into the saddle as the new king of speed in the continent with a new 9.84 seconds.

Simbine shaved off a hundreth of a second from the 9.85 seconds Fasuba clocked at the 2006 Doha Grand Prix in Qatar.

With barely a month to the start of the athletics events of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Simbine running at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial meeting in Budapest, Hungary on Tuesday, sent a strong signal to the rest of the field that the blue ribband event in the Far East will be a tough call.

Nigeria’s Divine Oduduru who was touted as possibly the man to erase Fasuba’s African record after he scorched to a 9.86 seconds finish to win the NCAA 100m title in 2019, finished third in the 200m race in Budapest as Simbine returned to complete a double in 20.25secs. Oduduru hit the finish line in 20.38 for the bronze medal.

The race was Oduduru’s first since May 31.

In the women’s 100m, Blessing Okagbare raced to a new 10.89 seconds personal season’s best to place fourth in the 100m event.

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).

Fellow African, Ivory Coast’s Marie-Jose Ta Lou who ran 10.86 seconds placed third.

Okagbare won the event in 2016 and 2017 but faced her biggest test ever at the event on Tuesday.

While the Sapele-born sprint queen failed to win for the third time in Budapest, Okagbare 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.

Nigerian 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).