Okezie intensifies preparations for 2025 World Indoor Championships with his second fastest 400m time indoors
Reigning African Games 400m champion, Chidi Okezie ran his fastest 400m race indoors in nine years after scorching to a 46.54 finish at the Belgrade Indoor Meeting, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting on Wednesday.
The 31-year-old improved on the 46.99 he ran to open his season at the Astana Indoor Meet, another Astana Indoor Meet Gold in Kazakhstan four days ago.
The Nigerian ran his fastest time over the distance indoor nine years ago, precisely 2016 at the Boston Last Chance Meet in Boston where he ran 46.48 to place first.
That time catapulted him to number 12 in the Nigerian all-time list.
Okezie tops the 2025 Nigerian list of top performers with his time and number three in Africa behind South Africa’s Antonie Matthys Nortje (46.12) and Morocco’s Hossam Hatib (46.34).
Okezie will be looking to return to the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, five years after crashing out at the semifinal stage of the event in Birmingham, United Kingdom.
He will be seeking a place in the final this time around where a place at the podium will be the only focus.
In 2016, representing the USA, he was in the team that made it to the final of the 4x400m relays, finishing fifth.
