Meeting International: Ajayi breaks record with 9.92s win in France
Kanyinsola Ajayi
Meeting International: Ajayi breaks record with 9.92s win in France
Kanyinsola Ajayi’s sensational form continued on Monday evening as he powered to a personal best-equalling 9.92s to win the men’s 100m at the Meeting International Sotteville-lès-Rouen in France,
The 20-year-old surged from lane five at the Stade Jean Adret with a reaction time of 0.156s to edge out a strong field that included five sub-10 second runners, winning by daylight and rewriting the meeting record previously held by Trinidad and Tobago’s Keston Bledman since 2015.
Bledman’s mark of 10.02s stood for nine years until Ajayi lowered it with his smooth run aided by a legal +1.7 m/s tailwind.
Cameroonian veteran, Emmanuel Eseme, placed second in 10.04s while Senegal’s Mamadou Sarr followed in 10.10s.
Great Britain’s European Athletics Team Championships winner Eugene Amo-Dadzie and Australia’s Rohan Browning were next in 10.16s, with Amo-Dadzie marginally ahead by time separation.
Canada’s Jerome Blake ran 10.23s to finish sixth, ahead of South Africa’s Tsebo Matsoso (10.32s) and home favourite Jimmy Vicaut (10.36s).
The race was Ajayi’s first outing since finishing fourth at the NCAA Championships in Eugene last month, where he initially clocked 9.92s for the first time in his career.
That performance confirmed his arrival at the world-class level, but this follow-up in France affirmed his growing consistency and readiness for the global stage.
The time places Ajayi among the world’s fastest men this year and ties him with Seun Ogunkoya and Udodi Onwuzurike for fourth place on Nigeria’s all-time list, behind only Soji Fasuba (9.85s), Divine Oduduru (9.86s), and Godson Oghenebrume (9.90s).
The Auburn University star now holds two of the five fastest legal times in Nigerian sprint history, both at age 20, and has joined Davidson Ezinwa and Ogunkoya with four career sub-10s, the second most by any Nigerian.
Ajayi, who won the Nigerian national 100m title in June 2024, also reached the semi-finals of the men’s 100m at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, where he doubled in the 4x100m relay and earned valuable relay experience.
At the African Championships held earlier in June in Douala, Cameroon, he narrowly missed the podium in the individual event, placing fourth, but returned to anchor Nigeria to silver in the 4x100m relay.
His indoor campaign earlier in this season was equally impressive. In March 2025, he clocked a personal best of 6.48s over 60m at the NCAA Indoor Championships, following that with a second-place finish in Virginia Beach where he ran 6.52s in a highly competitive final.
