The No.1 hurdler for Making of Champions (MoC) Track Club Miracle Thompson seems to be peaking at just the right time as the long-awaited National Sports Festival beckons, having already set back-to-back Personal Bests in her last two competitions this season over her specialist event, the 100m Hurdles.
Her latest PB was set at the BetKing/3rd MoC Grand Prix where she stormed to 2nd place with a lifetime best of 14.10s, a great improvement from her time of 14.27s which she set at the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) Evaluation Meet held in Akure a fortnight ago, thus drawing closer to the 13s mark. She also set another PB if 12.12s over the 100m at the Akure Meet. The 20-year-old had opened her 2021 season with a Season’s Best (SB) of 12.61s at the AFN All-Comers in Akure back in January.
Thompson’s PBs in the 100m Hurdles demonstrate the tremendous progress she has made, considering that she didn’t even feature in the hurdles at the 2nd MoC Grand Prix held in 2019, competing in the 100m and 200m only.
The talented hurdler had started out by wanting to play for the Super Falcons (Nigeria’s women’s football team), but is now being coached by Nigerian and African Record holder in the 100m Hurdles, Glory Alozie, who is Nigeria’s last individual Olympic medallist on the track, a feat she accomplished at the Sydney 2000 Games! As far as Thompson is concerned, she has the best coach in the world, and believes she has all it takes to get to the top of career.
Having attended the 2018 MoC Athletics Trials in Enugu, Thompson emerged a finalist in both the 100m and 200m events and was selected to join the club in 2019. In her first outing for MoC at the National U-18 and U-20 Trials in Ilaro, she reached the semis in the 100m and placed 4th in the 200m final. She has since transformed int one of the country’s finest hurdlers!
Although one of her major goals for 2020 was to qualify for the World U20 Championships, Thompson has now set her sights on the National Sports Festival (NSF) as she has since exceeded the age limit for the global championships which didn’t hold last year due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
Having won the Lagos State Trials for the NSF with a PB of 14.54s back in February 2020, then lowering her time to 14.41s at the Ekiti Classics to finish 2nd a week later, Thompson is looking forward to finishing on the podium in Edo State. She says, “Actually I’m not really scared of anybody because I really want to set a good goal for myself”.
