31st July, 2021
By Olawale Alabi
Team Nigeria’s Enoch Adegoke ran 9.98 seconds on Saturday in the men’s 100 metres event at the ongoing 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo to qualify for Sunday’s semi-finals.
The 21-year-old who ran on lane 6 of heat 2 at the Olympic Stadium in the event’s first round beat Femi Ogunode who represented Qatar and came in at 10.02.
Addegoke also beat the fastest man in the world this year and seventh fastest of all-time, USA’s Trayvon Brommel who tops the pre-Games world list with the 9.77 seconds he ran last month in Florida, USA.
Adegoke is joined in the semi-finals by compatriot Usheoritse Itsekiri who ran 10.15 seconds to place third in heat 1.
Their teammate, Divine Oduduru, was however disqualified for false starting in heat 5.
Itsekiri will now appear in Sunday’s first semi-final, while Adegoke will compete in the second semi-final.
In the semi-final heat, Adegoke has been drawn against the same athletes he defeated.
These are Brommel, Nigeria-born Qatari, Femi Ogunode and Britain’s Zhana Hughes.
Itshekiri will run in the first semifinal heat.
He has been drawn against four sprinters who have logged below 10 seconds this season. One of the sprinters is Canadian, Andre De Grasse.
Both Adegoke and Itshekiri will hope to become the next duo that will make the final of the event at the games after Davidson Ezinwa and Olapade Adeniken in the 1990s.
In the women’s version of the event, Grace Nwokocha failed to go beyond the semi-finals after placing fifth in semi-final 3 with a time of 11.07 seconds.