Kanyinsola Ajayi continued his impressive sprinting streak on Monday evening, achieving a remarkable 9.92-second run to secure victory in the men’s 100m at the Meeting International de Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France.
Launching from lane five at Stade Jean Adret with a reaction time of 0.156 seconds, the 20-year-old Nigerian outpaced a competitive field that included five athletes with sub-10 second personal bests. His performance broke the long-standing meet record of 10.02 seconds, previously set by Trinidad and Tobago’s Keston Bledman in 2015, aided by a permissible tailwind of +1.7 m/s.
Veteran sprinter Emmanuel Eseme from Cameroon finished in second place with a time of 10.04 seconds, while Senegal’s Mamadou Sarr took third with a time of 10.10 seconds.
Eugene Amo-Dadzie from Great Britain, who recently won at the European Athletics Team Championships, came in fourth with a time of 10.16 seconds, narrowly ahead of Australia’s Rohan Browning, who recorded the same time but was placed fifth due to time differential.
Canada’s Jerome Blake clocked 10.23 seconds to finish sixth, followed by South Africa’s Tsebo Matsoso at 10.32 seconds and France’s Jimmy Vicaut at 10.36 seconds, who received strong local support.
This race marked Ajayi’s first competition since finishing fourth at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon, where he initially recorded a time of 9.92 seconds—a breakthrough performance that highlighted his rise in the elite sprinting arena.
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This latest achievement solidifies his growing dominance and consistency, positioning him among the world’s fastest sprinters in 2025 and tying him with Seun Ogunkoya and Udodi Onwuzurike for fourth place on Nigeria’s all-time 100m list. Only Soji Fasuba (9.85 seconds), Divine Oduduru (9.86 seconds), and Godson Oghenebrume (9.90 seconds) have recorded faster times.
The standout from Auburn University now holds two of Nigeria’s top five all-time legal 100m performances—all accomplished at the age of just 20. He also joins Davidson Ezinwa and Ogunkoya as the only Nigerians to achieve four sub-10 second runs, marking the second-highest total ever by a Nigerian athlete.
