2023 NCAA Outdoor Championships: Onwuzurike seeking to emulate Adeniken, Oduduru by completing a sprint double
The 2023 NCAA outdoor championships get underway Wednesday at the Mike Myers stadium in Austin, Texas with Udodi Onwuzurike, the 2021 World U20 champion headlining a
strong cast of Nigerian athletes competing for honours for their respective Universities.
Onwuzurike will be seeking to become the third Nigerian man and the ffith African to successfully complete a sprint double double at the Championships.
Olopade Adeniken, the first Nigerian to go under 10 seconds in the 100m was also the first Nigerian and second African after Frankie Fredericks of Namibia
to complete a sprint double. This he did in 1992.
Divine Oduduru followed suit in 2019, running 9.86 (100m) and 19.73 (200m) to win the double.
Interestingly, Onwuzurike will be attempting the same feat at the same venue where Adeniken and Oduduru made history.
The 20 year old looks to be the favourite among the Nigerian sprinters that will line up at the championships to achieve this feat after running wind legal
10.92 and 19.91 in the 100m and 200m respectively on his way to Autin, Texas for the Championships.
Onwuzurike’s 10.92 is the joint third fastest by a Nigerian athlete since Oduduru ran 9.86 in 2019 while his 10.01 in the 200m makes him only the third
Nigerian to go under 20 seconds in the event after Oduduru and Francis Obikwelu.
The Stanford University student athlete seems to have come to form at the right time and could make it a double sprint glory for Africa for the second
straight year after Liberia’s Joseph Fahnbulleh won the 100m and 200m titles last year in Eugene, Oregon.
