Hot SourceWORLD ATHLETICS DIAMOND LEAGUE
Duro Ikhazuagbe
Before heading to the final of the World Athletics’ Wanda Diamond League grand finale at the Weltklasse Meeting in Zurich next weekend, Nigerian sprinter, Favour Ofili, will be in action this night at the Allianz Memorial Van Damme in Brussels, Belgium.
It is the final opportunity for top athletes to bank qualification points ahead of the series grand finale next week.
Ofili is the only Nigerian in action in the shorter sprint in Brussels tonight where she will battle Olympic 100m bronze medallist Melissa Jefferson-Wooden who is looking to maintain her current momentum through to Zurich and all the way to Tokyo for the World Championship.
The US sprinter is undefeated at 100m this year and has produced the four fastest times of her career in her last four finals. The ‘slowest’ of those was a 10.75 clocking, but that was into a -1.5m/s headwind. Her fastest time was her world-leading 10.65 from the US Championships, which she came close to in Silesia last week with 10.66.
Her form suggests that she could challenge the meeting record of 10.72, shared by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson. Fraser-Pryce is also in the field, as is world champion Sha’Carri Richardson. It will be the first time that Jefferson-Wooden, Fraser-Pryce and Richardson have been in the same 100m race. It promises to be one hell of a race tonight.
In all of these, Ofili with just four Diamond league points to her credit in the 100m, is not in reckoning in Brussels. Even if the unexpected happens and she wins the race, 12 or 13 points cannot take her to a place in the 100m final in Zurich. It will only prepare her for the 200m where she has booked a spot in the final. Her second place finish behind American Brittany Brown on a wet, raining track in Lausanne on Wednesday evening earned her the seventh place in the 200m line up in Zurich.
Tobi Amusan, who is the second Nigerian for the Diamond League finals, will not be competing tonight in Brussels. She is already looking forward to next weekend in Zurich where she will hope to increase the number of times that she has won her specialty, the women’s 100m hurdles and the accompanying $50,000 prize money.
Amusan, the reigning queen of the 100m hurdles, finished fifth in Lausanne on Wednesday with a lowly time of 12.82 secs. The disappointment didn’t bother her as she has already amassed 27 points for a second place behind Grace Stark, who leads the standing from the series with 35 points.
Amusan will return to the Zurich track where she claimed her first two Diamond League titles, seeking to add a fourth crown to her collection. She won her third title at the Hayward Filed in Eugene, Oregon, the same venue where she won the World Championship title and set the World record of 12.12secs in 2022.
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