Olympic Debutant Onojuvwevwo Advances To Women’s 400m Semis
Olympic debutant, Ella Onojuvwevwo of Nigeria, sailed through to the women’s 400m semifinals after winning her repechage heat at the Paris 2024 Games.
After initially missing out on an automatic qualifying spot by placing 6th in the heats, despite leading in the first 300m, the Nigerian came to the repechage round with a well-planned race.
Onojuvwevwo started conservatively in the first 250m and then built momentum, charging through to win the heat in 50.59s ahead of Justyna Swiety-Ersetic, who ran 50.89s and Sharlene Mawdsley, who finished in 51.18s.
Onojuvwevwo’s winning time is her second-fastest time ever as she owns a Personal Best (PB) of 50.57s.
Udodi Chudi Onwuzurike (Men’s 200m)
Team Nigerian sprinter Udodi Chudi Onwuzurike on Tuesday in Paris qualified for the semi-finals of the men’s 200m event of the Olympic Games, at the Stade de France.
The 21-year-old had first failed to qualify on Monday after he could only finish fifth from lane 2 of heat 2 in the event’s round 1. He had a time of 20.55 seconds, finishing out of the top three who directly qualified for the semi-finals, but qualifying for the repechage round.
On Tuesday, Onwuzurike utilised the chance to still enter the semi-finals. This was from the repechage round which involved nearly all of those who failed to make it to the semi-finals from Monday’s six heats.
Ranked number one and running from lane 6, he ran 20.51 seconds to win heat 1 and advance to Wednesday’s semi-finals, alongside five others.
