Onwuzurike thrilled to break Ato Boldon’s meet record
Former World U20 champion, Udodi Onwuzurike says he is delighted with his record breaking performance on Sunday at the Pac-12 championships.
The 20 year old ran 19.91 seconds to win the 200m event, his first Conference outdoor title after a pair of silver medals last year.
The time shatterred his own school record of 20.08. It also dumped into the archives the meet record of 20.00 set by UCLA’s Ato Boldon in 1996.
Onwuzurike becomes number three in Pac-12 history behind only Boldon (19.80, 1996) and USC’s Andre DeGrasse (19.88, 2015), each an Olympic 200 medalist.
The Nigerian moves into a tie for No. 9 on the all-time collegiate outdoor performers’ list and he is the third-fastest in the world this year.
‘It felt good. I really put it together at the end,’ the Nigerian told his school, Stanford University official website.
Onwuzurike has now tied or broken Stanford records 13 times so far. He is the school’s first conference outdoor champion at 200m since Jimmie Johnson won the Pac-10 in 1997.
He is also the third Nigerian to run sub-20 seconds in the 200m event behind Divine Oduduru (19.73) and Francis Obikwelu (19.84).
