Nigeria’s Favour Ofili on Friday, automatically qualified for the women’s 200m at the Paris 2024 Olympics after winning the Toms Jones Memorial Classic at the James G. Pressly Stadium, in Gainesville, Florida
Ofili, who is the African record holder, clocked 22.33s (1.4) to automatically for the Olympics, in the process, running her fastest time in two years.
The automatic qualification time for the women’s 200m at the Paris Olympics is 22.57s.
United States Anavia Battle was second in 22.56s, while Denmark’s Ida Karstoft was third in 22.60s, which was a PB and National Record.
The 21-year-old Ofili’s time is also the fourth-fastest time this year behind Gabrielle Thomas (22.08s), Julien Alfred (22.16s) and Tamara Clark (22.21s).
This is Ofili’s first season since she turned pro and signed for Adidas after graduating from LSU, where she excelled as a college athlete.
She also qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics which held in 2021 due to COVID-19 aged 18, but wasn’t able to participate in the competition after being part of the 10 Nigerian athletes disqualified from the Olympics over failure to meet the required three out of competition tests.
Ofili joins women’s 100m hurdles record holder, Tobi Amusan, Ezekiel Nathaniel (men’s 400m hurdles), Edose Ibadin (men’s 800m), Ruth Usoro (men’s 800m), Chukwuebuka Enekwechi (shotput) and Favour Ashe (100m) as the only Nigerians who have automatically qualified for this year’s Olympics.
