Nigeria’s 4x100m women’s team qualified for the final of the 2022 World Athletics Championships in the early hours of today in Oregon, United States, the same day home girl Sydney McLaughlin broke the women’s 400m hurdles world record.
The quartet of Joy Udo-Gabriel, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha powered Team Nigeria to the final for the first time in 11 years, finishing third in their semi-final in a season’s best time of 42.68 seconds.
The United States of America team won the heat in a world leading time of 41.56s, with Spain finishing second in a new national record time of 42.61s.
The Nigerian quartet returned the sixth best time of the eight finalists, behind USA, Great Britain, Jamaica, Germany and Spain, while Italy and Switzerland had the seventh and eighth best times respectively.
In the final event of Friday night (USA time)/Saturday morning (Nigerian time), McLaughlin produced the highlight of the day.
She decimated a strong field to run 50.68s, a whole one and a half seconds ahead of the second-placed athlete, to win gold and break her own previous world record of 50.77s
According to World Athletics, McLaughlin holds the world 400m hurdles bests at every age from 14 to 19. She holds the world U-18 record at 54.18s – no one has ever got within a second of it. She holds the fastest ever time by an U-20 athlete at 52.75 – no one has got within 1.5 seconds of that.
With her performance in the Oregon final, McLaughlin again broke the senior world record for the third time in 12 months, her best mark now nine tenths of a second ahead of the next fastest in history – which equates to seven metres on the track.
Femke Bol of the Netherlands won silver in 52.27s, with bronze going to the previous world champion Dalilah Muhammad of USA in 53.13. USA’s Shamier Little was fourth in 53.76.
After the race, McLaughlin said, while sat down on the track: “I was just trying to process the lactic acid, and I was taking a moment to enjoy what had happened.”
Her fellow medallists were asked if they thought 50.68 was a time they ever thought possible. “I definitely thought 50 was possible, and after that race I think 49 is possible – by Sydney,” laughed Muhammad.
