Grand Slam Track: Ofili drawn in lane two, aiming to maintain unbeaten 100m run against six of her rivals

Nigeria’s Favour Ofili has been drawn to run from the second lane in her debut in Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track this weekend in Miami, Florida, USA.

The 22-year-old has been pitched against some notable sprint stars including Gabby Thomas, the reigning Paris 2024 Olympic 200m champion and Brittany Brown, bronze medalist from the same Olympics.

Others are 2022 Commonwealth Games 100m bronze medalist, Daryl Neita of Great Britain, USA’s Tamari Davis, Kayla White, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, and Jacious Sears.

The Nigerian is the fastest in the 100m event among the eight athletes listed to compete for the $100,000 top prize on offer for the winner of the Short Sprint (100m and 200m) events.

Her 10.99 personal season’s best she ran four days ago in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is bettered only by Anavia Battle who ran 10.98 nearly a week earlier in Florida.

Ofili will be White and Brown for the first time in the blue ribband event while she has a 1-0 head to head record against Thomas, Jefferson-Wouden and Davis.

Only Sears has beaten the Nigerian once over the distance and this happened in 2023 to draw level, as it were, with the Nigerian who won their first head to head face off in 2022.

Grand Slam Track is the premier global professional track league featuring matchups between the fastest stars in the sport.

According to the organizers, ‘each competitor earns points based on their finishing position in both races. From 1st to 8th place the points per race are distributed as: 12-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.

‘The competitor who finishes with the highest total number of points after the completion of both events will be crowned Slam Champion.’