Onyekwere aiming to become fifth Nigerian to set an African record at the World Athletics Championships

Last August Chioma Onyekwere made history as the first female Discus Throw athlete to crowned Commonwealth Games champion and the Nigerian is eyeing further
history as the first field eventer to set an African record at the World Championships.

The 30 year old will be seeking to follow in the footsteps of Olopade Adeniken, Mary Onyali, Glory Alozie and Tobi Amusan as Nigerians who have either set or
equalled an African record at World Athletics’ flagship event.

Adeniken remains the first Nigerian to set an African record at the World Championships. He achieved the feat in the 200m event in Tokyo, Japan at the third
edition of the championships in 1991.

Adeniken, the first Nigerian to go under 10 seconds in the 100m, came to the championships brandishing, as it were, a 20.37 lifetime best set just over a
year earlier.

At the Championships he scorched to a 20.30 finish to equal the African record set by compatriot, Davidson Ezinwa a year earlier in Bauchi, Nigeria.
Two years later, Mary Onyali made history as the first African woman to run inside 11 seconds in the 100m event.

Her 10.97 run in the second quarterfinal heat, beating the great Russian, Irina Privalova (11.14), was the fastest in the round and it was an African record.
She broke the 11.04 African record she set at Villeneuve d’Ascq in the north of France in 1991.

Glory Alozie followed in the footsteps of Onyali six years later in Seville, Spain where she equalled the African record she first set at the Herculis Zepter
Golden League meeting in Monaco, France.

Her 12.44 run in Seville fetched her a silver medal in the 100m hurdles to become the first Nigerian to win a medal at the World indoor and outdoor
championships after winning silver in the winter of 1999 inside the Green Dome in Maebashi, Japan.

Onyekwere holds a lifetime best of 64.96m which she set last April. The mark is the farthest thrown by an African woman and the Nigerian will have to throw
father than that to stand a chance of making the podium in Budapest.

Others with an outside chance are Ashley Anumba who has been in incredible form this year and set a lifetime best of 61.98m and Chukwuebuka Enekwechi who may
aiming to become the first African to hit the 22m mark.

He holds a lifetime best of 21.80, 17m centimetre short of the 21.97m South African, Janus Roberts set in Eugene, Oregon in 2001.