Ogunkoya: Consider Ekanem destined to be the new 100m king in Nigeria

Former African 100m record holder, Seun Ogunkoya believes his athlete, Consider Ekanem will become the next big, world-class sprinter that will come out of Nigeria, very soon.

Consider ran a 10.10 world lead in the 100m event to emerge the fastest man in the Dynamic Outdoor Meet 2024 held on Saturday at the Nigerian Navy ground in Ojo, Lagos.

The 19-year-old has been tipped by many to follow in the footsteps of his coach, Ogunkoya who ruled the Nigerian and African sprint scene in the late 1990s.

Ogunkoya stormed into the limelight when he ran 10.15 on his way to winning the National Sports Festival title in 1996 in Makurdi. He won the African Championships gold later that year and repeated as winner two years later in an African record-setting 9.94 run. Later that year, he improved his African record to 9.92 at the World Cup in Athletics in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Consider is now being labeled as the new Seun Ogunkoya but his coach believes he can be better than he was in his active days as an athlete.

Ogunkoya believes Consider should have run faster than he did on Saturday.

‘That was not my time. He should have done better than that,’ Ogunkoya told Sportsnow.com.ng in an interview.

Ogunkoya is however confident Consider still has a lot to give and assures Nigerians a new Seun Ogunkoya has been unearthed. ‘I have been telling Nigerians I am going to produce another Seun Ogunkoya. I am going to produce an athlete that is better than I was,’ he said and promised his athlete would drop a sub-10 seconds this year.

‘Consider will run inside 10 seconds this season,’ he insisted recalling how he ran 9.97, his first sub-10 seconds performance just about a year after he broke into the limelight in 1996.

The first major test for Consider is the African Games in Ghana where he will aim to make a huge statement about his arrival on the African sprint like his coach did at the African Championships in 1996 in Cameroon.