Adekunle Fasasi is showing that he is in great form and would be the Nigerian quarter-miler to watch out for, after racing to an indoor Personal Best (PB) of 45.57s to finish 2nd in heat 1 and qualifying for the men’s 400m final at the ongoing National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Indoor Championships.
The Nigerian 400m champion who recently broke the 300m National Record (NR) while competing for his school, University of Florida is now ranked at number 3 in the world, with Fred Kerley who won the heat in 45.02s ranked as number 1, and Grenada’s Bralon Taplin ranked at number 2, the only two people in the world to have run faster times indoors, than Fasasi this year.
To add to his outstanding performance, his time is No.5 on his school’s all-time list, and it is just 0.06s short of late Sunday Bada’s National Record (NR) of 45.51s, which was set 20 years ago.
Fasasi will come back for the final later on Saturday at the College Station in Texas, and will no doubt be one of the favourites for a podium placement.
Meanwhile, two other Nigerian athletes also qualified for the final of their respective events.
In the women’s 60m Hurdles, Oluwatobiloba Amusan qualified for the final as one of the top four fastest losers. Amusan finished 3rd in heat 1 with a time of 8.00s with NCAA leader Sasha Wallace clocking 7.87s, and Anna Cockrell 2nd in 7.98s.
Amusan who surprised many to finish 2nd in the NCAA outdoor championships last year, will be hoping she could string up such performance again this time around in the indoor competition.
In the women’s 800m, Abike Egbeniyi who is in her sophomore season in the NCAA, qualified for the final after finishing 4th in heat 1 with a time of 2:04.78. Egbeniyi competes for Middle Tennessee State University.
The finals of the different events will be coming up later on today.
