Nigerian sprinter Kanyinsola Ajayi continued her brilliant season on Monday evening, blazing to a personal best-equalling 9.92 seconds to win the men’s 100m at the Meeting International Sotteville-lès-Rouen in France.
The 20-year-old surged from lane five at Stade Jean Adret with a reaction time of 0.156 seconds, dominating a field that featured five sub-10-second runners.
His run shattered the meeting record of 10.02 seconds set by Trinidad and Tobago’s Keston Bledman in 2015. “I felt good and knew I could execute my race plan,” Ajayi said after clocking the fastest time ever run at the meet, aided by a legal +1.7 m/s tailwind.
Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme finished second in 10.04 seconds, with Senegal’s Mamadou Sarr third in 10.10. Great Britain’s Eugene Amo-Dadzie and Australia’s Rohan Browning followed in 10.16, while Canada’s Jerome Blake clocked 10.23 for sixth place.
The race was Ajayi’s first outing since finishing fourth at the NCAA Championships in Eugene last month, where he also ran 9.92, cementing his status among the world’s elite.
The time ties him with Seun Ogunkoya and Udodi Onwuzurike for fourth place on Nigeria’s all-time list, behind only Soji Fasuba (9.85), Divine Oduduru (9.86), and Godson Oghenebrume (9.90).
“I’m excited to keep building on this,” said Ajayi, who won the Nigerian national title in June 2024 and reached the 100m semifinals at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
The Auburn University star now holds two of the five fastest legal times in Nigerian sprint history and joins Davidson Ezinwa and Ogunkoya as the only Nigerians with four career sub-10-second performances.
