July 28, (THEWILL) – It was a joyous day for Team Nigerian at the Summer Games in Tokyo as the country’s swimming athlete Abiola Ogunbanwo brought the country its second victory at the 2020 Olympics in heat 1 of the women’s 100m Freestyle swimming event in a time of 59.74s, breaking Ngozi Monu’s 14-year Nigerian record.
Ogunbanwo swam to a new National Record to become the first ever Nigerian woman to swim under the one-minute mark in this event in all competitions. She has now claimed two Nigerian records for herself while still in her teens.
The 17-year-old was only three years old when Monu’s longstanding record of 1:00.50 was set and the record stood for a solid 14-year period before the teenager dived into the pool on Wednesday to rewrite the record books and enter her name into history.
In her record-setting swim, she touched the platform ahead of Andela Antunovic of Montenegro, who finished in a time of 1:00.01, Nepal’s Gaurika Singh came third in 1:00.11 followed by Mineri Gomez of Guam’s 1:04.00. It was a personal achievement that was only soiled by the fact that it was insufficient to secure her progress.
Her time was enough to give her an overall ranking of 48th place at the completion of the six heats in the event. That ranking left the teenager out of places for consideration in the semi-finals of a very tough class of swimmers.
Yet, for Ogunbanwo, who had come to Tokyo with a Personal Best time of 1:00.77, to have pushed herself, against all odds and in a competitively advanced stage like the Olympics to achieve a new record under one-minute, illustrated how far she had come so quickly. It is to her advantage also that she is young, willing to improve and desirous to win.
Her final 50m of the Wednesday race displayed these qualities and those are the attributes of winners. By adding this 100m national record to the 400m freestyle and 200m breaststroke national records she currently holds, her confidence to get better can only accelerate her potential to the full.
Ogunbanwo, who had honed her skills at the globally acclaimed FINA Development Centre in Kazan, Russia, may not have reached the semis but her spectacular outing at the Tokyo Olympics, the knack she had shown for pushing the boundaries and excellent grooming from the handlers of her progress will undoubtedly be important for her swimming development to assure Nigeria of her first swimming medals down the line.
As THEWILL reported, Nigeria participated in swimming event because of a universality invitation from world swimming governing body FINA for Nigeria to send a top-ranked female swimmer in The respective individual events to the Olympics, based on the FINA Points System of June 28, 2021.
Before Ogunbanwo, the only Nigerians to have graced the pool at the Olympics were Musa Bakare and Ikhaghomi Joshua in 1992 in Barcelona, two-time Olympian Monu in 2000 in Sydney and again in 2008 in Beijing, Gentle Offoin with Monu in Sydney, Lenient Obia and Eric Williams in 2004 in Athens, Yellow Yeiyah in 2008 in Beijing 2008, Samson Opuakpo and Rachael Tonjor in 2016 in Rio.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
