By Sulaimon Jamiu
Favour Ofili continued her meteoric rise in the athletics world with an otherworldly performance in the women’s 200m at the Tom Jones Memorial meet in Florida, where she represented her school Louisiana State University.
The 19-year-old ran the fastest 200m of any woman in the world in 2022 to claim victory in the meet.
Ofili finished her first 200m race of the season in a time of 21.96 seconds, making her the first Nigerian woman in history to complete the race in under 22 seconds.
She broke the national record of 22.04 seconds previously held by Blessing Okagbare, and is now the second-fastest African woman of all-time over the distance.
The teenager finished the race in first place ahead of Kamaya Debose-Epps and Jonah Ross, who ran 22.81 and 22.91 seconds, respectively, to set a new record in collegiate history.
Her time of 21.96 seconds was also the first time in NCAA history that an athlete ran sub-22 seconds, with the previous record of 22.02 seconds having been set in 2017 by Kyra Jefferson.
In African history, only Christine Mboma (21.78 seconds) has ever run faster than Favour Ofili over 200m. Ofili’s time is also a new record at her school, making it all the more impressive for the youngster who ran the 400m only originally.
Before her latest feat, she had impressive runs in her career. She was named the female athlete of the meet at the 2019 African U18 and U20 Championships in Athletics after winning both the 200 and 400 meters events.
The teenager was among the athletes that were prevented from participating at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 due to their failure to comply with the out of the competition testing (OCT) requirement.
