Who will succeed Ogunkoya and Amusan as winners of an elite one-day meeting series?
The 2024 Wanda Diamond League will come to a finish on Saturday with the second day of the final in Brussels, Belgium with Nigeria’s Chukwuebuka Enekwechi in action in the men’s Shot Put.
Nigeria has not had much success in the event, athletics’ premier one day meeting series with Tobi Amusan the only winner a country of over 200m have produced in the competition.
The 27-year-old made history in 2021 when she became the first Nigerian, man or woman, to win in the competition which started in 2010. Not even the great Blessing Okagbare was able to race to the podium as champion.
Amusan repeated as the winner in 2022 and 2023, becoming in the process the first Nigerian in Diamond League history and the second woman in the history of the event to win three titles in a row.
In 2022, Amusan was ranked as the best sprint hurdler in the world following her incredible feats at the World Athletics Championships and the Diamond League final.
In the women’s overall ranking, she was ranked fifth best in the world.
But, is Amusan the first Nigerian to win in a World Athletics elite, one day meeting series?.
Is she the first to be ranked number one in a world athletics discipline at the end of a year and the first to be ranked among the best final in the women’s overall rankings? The answer is a categorical no.
Falilat Ogunkoya is the first Nigerian to be so honoured and the first to be ranked number one in an athletics discipline and the first to be ranked as high as third in the overall women’s rankings.
Ogunkoya won the 400m event in the Golden League era, winning three of seven meetings (Laussane, Berlin and Moscow), including the winner-takes-it-all final in 1998.
The former Nigeria junior international was undisputably the best 400m runner in the world in 1998 and her compatriot, Charity Opara who won three out of the seven Golden League meetings (Oslo, Rome and Monaco) that year was ranked the second best in the full lap race.
That was the first and only time Nigeria will go 1 and 2 in an athletics discipline in a year.
Ogunkoya was crowned African champion in the 200m and 400m that year. She was also the winner of the event at World Cup in athletics held in Johannesburg, South Africa.
She was ranked the third best woman in 1998.
With Amusan and Ese Brume absent this year, and Enekwechi facing odds clearly marked insurmountable in the shot put event, the question that will be on lips of Nigerians will be when Nigeria will produce athletes capable of suceeding the duo of Ogunkoya and Amusan who will end an athletics season at the end of a year as world number one?
