Kanyinsola Ajayi qualified for the 100m men’s final at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Sunday.
He becomes the first Nigerian to achieve the feat in 18 years since Olusoji Fasuba in 2007.
Ajayi finished in second position in Heat 1 of the semi-final race, clocking 9.93s to claim one of the two automatic qualification spots.
He ran a sub-10-second race for the sixth time in his career, qualifying for the final on his birthday.
The 21-year-old finished a 100th of a second behind USA’s Noah Lyles, the reigning 100m Olympics champion, who won the heat.
His time was the fifth-best in the semi-finals, and the Ikorodu native is one of four Africans to qualify for the final, alongside Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo and the South African duo of Akani Simbine and Gift Leotlela.
Ajayi, recently deposed as the national 100m champion, will compete in the final alongside Kishane Thompson, ranked number one in the world, on Monday.
Another Nigerian male athlete who partook in the 100m heats, Israel Okon, was unable to match Ajayi’s performance.
The national champion finished in seventh place in Heat 3, with a time of 10.14s.
