Astonishing! Ashe, Brume, and Onwuzurike make history for Nigeria at NCAA Championships

For the first time in US college track and field history, three Nigerian male sprinters in Favour Ashe, Godson Brume, and Udodi Onwuzurike will be racing in a 100m final at the NCAA Championships.

The trio ran record-breaking times in their respective semifinals to qualify for the final - accomplishing an incredible feat for their schools and Nigeria.

Auburn University's Ashe led the way in semifinal 2, storming to an outstanding Personal Best (PB) of 9.96s to effortlessly win his race and secure the automatic qualifying spot.

His time not only tied the School Record (SR) but lowered his previous best of 9.99s clocked when winning the Nigerian championships in 2022. It has also propelled him as joint eighth-fastest with Raymond Ekevwo on the all-time Nigerian list.

Following this, Louisiana State University's Brume won the third and final semifinal in an outstanding lifetime best of 9.93s to also book his final spot.

Brume's time makes him the second-fastest in the school's history and the fourth-fastest on the all-time Nigerian list.

Interestingly, Ashe and Brume's blazing runs also qualified them for the World Championships in Budapest, as they surpassed the automatic qualifying time of 10.00s.

And then the third finalist is Onwuzurike, whose time of 10.04s was good enough to earn him one of the two non-automatic qualifying spots.

By getting a final spot, the Stanford University standout sprinter became the first athlete in his school's history to advance to an NCAA 100m final since 1963.

Having clocked 9.92s at the NCAA West Preliminaries two weeks ago, this means the mentioned three have hit the World Championships qualifying standard to Budapest.

The 20-year-old also clocked a blistering 19.76s in his 200m semifinal, which rose to No.3 on the NCAA all-time list, shattered his previous PB of 19.91s, stands as No.2 on the all-time Nigerian list behind Divine Oduduru's 19.73s, and is now the No.2 time on the world's top list just behind World champion Noah Lyles's 19.67s.

Onwuzurike has a chance of medaling in both events or claiming the sprints double titles, which will be the first time a Nigerian since Oduduru in 2019 achieved such a feat.

Ashe, Brume, and Onwuzurike can do the unthinkable by making it a Nigerian 1-2-3 in the final. If this happens, it will be the biggest country achievement by non-Amenricans to attain such a feat in NCAA 100m history.