Nigerian sprint sensation Kanyinsola Ajayi delivered another commanding performance on Monday evening, matching his personal best of 9.92 seconds to claim victory in the men’s 100 metres at the Meeting International de Sotteville-lès-Rouen in France.
Competing from lane five at the Stade Jean Adret, the 20-year-old got off to a sharp start with a reaction time of 0.156 seconds.
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He stormed to the front against a stacked field that featured five sub-10 second sprinters, cruising to a comfortable win and setting a new meet record in the process.
The previous record of 10.02 seconds, set by Trinidad and Tobago’s Keston Bledman in 2015, had remained untouched for nearly a decade. Ajayi’s blistering sprint, aided by a legal tailwind of +1.7 m/s, shattered that mark.
Finishing behind Ajayi was Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon, who clocked 10.04 seconds. Senegal’s Mamadou Sarr followed closely in third, recording a time of 10.10 seconds.
British sprinter Eugene Amo-Dadzie, fresh off a European Athletics Team Championships gold, finished in 10.16 seconds, narrowly edging Australia’s Rohan Browning, who posted the same time. Canada’s Jerome Blake placed sixth in 10.23 seconds, while South Africa’s Tsebo Matsoso and France’s Jimmy Vicaut followed in 10.32 and 10.36 seconds, respectively.
This outing marked Ajayi’s first race since his fourth-place finish at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, where he first hit the 9.92-second mark. His repeat performance in France not only highlights his consistency but also cements his reputation as a rising force on the global sprinting circuit.
With this time, Ajayi now ranks among the top sprinters in the world for the year.
He also moves into a tie for fourth place on Nigeria’s all-time 100m list, joining Seun Ogunkoya and Udodi Onwuzurike. Only Olusoji Fasuba (9.85s), Divine Oduduru (9.86s), and Godson Oghenebrume (9.90s) have recorded faster times.
At just 20 years old, the Auburn University athlete now owns two of the five fastest wind-legal 100m times ever recorded by a Nigerian. He has also become one of only three Nigerian sprinters—alongside Davidson Ezinwa and Ogunkoya—to have clocked four career sub-10 second races, the second-most in the country’s history.Ajayi’s national title win in June 2024 further signaled his domestic dominance.
At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, he advanced to the semi-finals in the men’s 100m and participated in the 4x100m relay, gaining valuable experience on the sport’s biggest stage.
Earlier, at the African Championships in Douala, Cameroon, Ajayi narrowly missed a medal in the individual 100m event, finishing fourth. He, however, played a key role in helping Nigeria secure a silver medal in the 4x100m relay, anchoring the team to the podium.
Ajayi’s 2025 indoor season was equally impressive. At the NCAA Indoor Championships in March, he set a personal best of 6.48 seconds in the 60m event. He followed that up with a runner-up finish at a high-profile meet in Virginia Beach, clocking 6.52 seconds in a tightly contested final.
