2024 NCAA Indoor Championships: Adeshina is lone Nigerian medal hope as Chukwuma’s out of contention in 60m, 200m

All eyes will now solely be on high jumper Temitope Adeshina to produce the next Nigerian to be crowned NCAA indoor champion after sprinter, Rosemary
Chukwuma tumbled out of the 60 and 200m events.

Chukwuma was tipped as one of the favourites in what was expected to be an open 60m final in the last few years but the Nigerian failed to live up to pre-
race expectations as she failed to make it to Saturday’s final at the ongoing NCAA Division Indoor Championships in Boston, a city in Massachusetts, USA.

The 22 year old ran 7.27 seconds, her slowest in the championship since 2022 when she made her debut, to place 11th and crash out of the event.

She failed to start in the 200m to effectively end her campaign without a final appearance in both events.

The second Nigerian in the race, Success Umukoro ended up in 14th place with her 7.32 run in the 60m event.

Adeshina is now the only realistic hope of having a Nigerian mount the podium as an NCAA indoor champion for the first time since 2021 when Ruth Usoro won
the triple jump title.

The 25 year old Texas Tech University undergraduate student set a new 1.96m Nigerian record in January and she is second in the ranking coming to this
championship behind Lamara Distin of Jamaica who has soared to reach the magical 2m mark.

Meanwhile, 400m hurdler, Ezekiel Nathaniel will run in men’s 400m final on Saturday evening.

The 20 year old ran 46.14 to qualify as the eighth best for the final but will have to run faster than the 45.54 seconds lifetime best he ran early last
month to stand a realistic chance of making the podium in the event.