Nigeria's new era of male sprinters dominate NCAA preliminaries to qualify for national championship

Nigerian male sprinters in the US are on a mission to make history after dominating the preliminaries to punch their tickets to the NCAA Championships in two weeks.

Top on the list is Favour Ashe, who blazed to a blistering Personal Best (PB) of 9.94s (1.4m/s) to win his 100m quarterfinal race and punch his ticket to his third national championship.

By doing this, the Auburn University junior broke Christian Coleman's 9.96s Facility Record (FR) from 2017, and he is one of the top favourites to win the NCAA title.

Ashe also inspired a second-place finish for his teammate Kanyinsola Ajayi, who came close to clocking a sub-10s time with a brilliant PB of 10.03s to secure his spot in the NCAA Championships as well.

Ajayi's progress this season has been on a meteoric rise, going from being a 10.27s runner in 2023 to his present PB and winning the South Eastern Conference Championships 60m title in just five months of transferring to the US.

He is now primed to become a sub-10s sprinter this season with an automatic Paris Olympic ticket and perhaps win a medal at the NCAA Championships.

Finally, Godson Brume continued with his rediscovered impressive form with a 10.04s victory in his quarterfinal heat to punch his ticket to the NCAA Championships.

Despite a poor start, the Louisiana State University (LSU) junior recovered well to dominate his race and become Nigeria's third qualifier on the day.

With their performances, this means three Nigerian sprinters will compete in the men's 100m event at the championship, and all have great chances of medalling. 

If this happens, it'll be an iconic moment in NCAA history of having a Nigerian 1-2-3 finish in any event.