The number of Nigerian athletes who have qualified for the track events of the Paris 2024 Olympics, which will be held from 26 July to 11 August, keeps growing as sprinters, Rosemary Chukwuma and Tima Godbless punched their tickets at the National Collegiate Athletics Association regional finals on Saturday.
African U-20 Championships gold medallist, Chukwuma qualified for the Olympics in style as she set two other milestones during her race.
She ran a personal best of 10.88s (+1.2) to lower her school record in the 100m and also became the second-fastest Nigerian woman all-time behind Blessing Okagbare who is a former volunteer assistant and master’s degree graduate from Chukwuma’s school, Texas Tech.
She shaved 0.11s off her PB set in 2022, beating Ariane Linton who was second in 11.07s (PB), and Jassani Carter in 11.09s.
Earlier, Chukwuma anchored the Texas Tech 400m relay to first in one of the heats and third overall. Serena Clark, Success Umukoro, Alyssa Colbert and Chukwuma got the baton around in 42.77s which is the second of all time for Texas Tech.
Similarly, Godbless who was part of the women’s 4x100m relay team that qualified Nigeria for the Olympics at the World Relays in the Bahamas also powered to a new personal best of 11.03s (+0.5) and punched two tickets at once – one to the NCAA Championships and an Olympics qualifier.
She finished behind McKenzie Long who won in 10.92s but it was enough for her to qualify for both events.
On the tracks, Nigeria now have five female athletes who have qualified for individual events as well as seven men.
