20-year-old Nigerian sprint sensation breaks meet record, cements place among nation’s fastest men
Rising Nigerian sprint star, Kanyinsola Ajayi delivered another electric performance on Monday evening, storming to a 9.92-second victory in the men’s 100m final at the Meeting International de Sotteville-lès-Rouen in France.
Running from lane five at Stade Jean Adret with a reaction time of 0.156 seconds, the 20-year-old outran a high-caliber field featuring five sub-10 second sprinters.
His winning time shattered the previous meet record of 10.02s, held since 2015 by Trinidad and Tobago’s Keston Bledman, boosted by a legal +1.7 m/s tailwind.
Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme finished second in 10.04s, while Senegal’s Mamadou Sarr secured third in 10.10s. Great Britain’s Eugene Amo-Dadzie and Australia’s Rohan Browning both clocked 10.16s, but Amo-Dadzie edged it for fourth. Canada’s Jerome Blake followed with 10.23s, ahead of South Africa’s Tsebo Matsoso (10.32s) and France’s Jimmy Vicaut (10.36s).
The win marks Ajayi’s second legal 9.92s this season, matching the time he ran at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon, where he finished fourth, cementing his status as one of the world’s emerging sprint forces.
Ajayi’s feat ties him with Seun Ogunkoya and Udodi Onwuzurike for fourth on Nigeria’s all-time 100m list. Only Olusoji Fasuba (9.85s), Divine Oduduru (9.86s), and Godson Oghenebrume (9.90s) have run faster. He now holds two of Nigeria’s five fastest legal sprint times ever.
The Auburn University athlete and reigning Nigerian 100m champion also joins Davidson Ezinwa and Ogunkoya as one of only three Nigerians to record four sub-10s in the 100m, a rare milestone, especially at just 20 years of age.
Ajayi, who reached the semi-finals at the Paris 2024 Olympics and ran in Nigeria’s 4x100m relay squad, also had a stellar indoor season earlier this year.
He ran a personal best of 6.48s in the 60m at the NCAA Indoor Championships and followed it up with a 6.52s second-place finish in Virginia Beach.
His consistency across multiple competitions signals not just raw talent but growing maturity, as Ajayi continues to climb the global sprinting ranks with Paris 2024 in the rearview and the 2025 World Championships in sight.
