Onwuzurike’s eighth Nigerian man to win NCAA outdoor title
Former World U20 champion, Udodi Onwuzurike ran into history books early Saturday morning as the eighth Nigerian man to win the NCAA title.
The 20 year old scorched to an impressive 19.84 to win the 200m title at the Mike Myers stadium in Austin, Texas, the venue that has produced the last two Nigerians to win the half lap title.
Onwuzurike has now become the third Nigerian man to win the 200m title after Olopade Adeniken (1992) and Divine Oduduru (2018 and 2019).
The Nigerian has led a sprints resurgence at Stanford and his win in Austin, Texas earned the school’s first NCAA 200 victory since 1939.
Onwuzurike had earlier made history as the first Stanford male to race in an NCAA 100 final since 1963,placing sixth in 9.98 — the fastest a Stanford University student-athlete has ever run in the NCAA Championships!
The first Nigerian man to win an NCAA title was long jumper, Charlton Ehizuelen who won the triple jump gold in 1974 and followed it up with a long jump gold in 1975.
The long jump provided the next two gold medalists with Paul Emordi and George ‘Lakayana’ Ogbeide leaping to victory in 1987 and 1991 respectively.
Adeniken won the first track title when he successfully completed a sprint double in Austin, Texas in 1992 and was followed by quartermiler Clement Chukwu who raced to glory in the 400m in 1999.
400m barrier runner, Miles Ukaoma won the 400m hurdles in 2014 before Oduduru took over the stage first in 2018 when he won the 200m title before he sped to a sprint double in Austin, Texas the following year (2019).
