AFCON 2025
Kanyinsola Ajayi has once again matched his own Nigerian 100m record, this time to win the London Diamond League on Saturday. The 21-year-old crossed the line in 9.84 seconds at London Stadium, defeating a stacked field that included reigning world champion Oblique Seville, Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo, and American sprinter Jordan Anthony.
The result marks Ajayi’s second Diamond League victory of the season, following his breakthrough win at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene last month, where he first equalled the national record against many of the same rivals. Saturday’s performance confirms that the run was no fluke, cementing his status as one of the form sprinters in the world this year.
Ajayi’s 9.84 has now stood since he first set it at the NCAA East Regional Championships in May, when he broke Olusoji Fasuba’s long-standing 9.85 national record, a mark that had held since the 2006 Doha Grand Prix. He has since matched that time on two further occasions against elite international opposition, underlining its legitimacy as more than a one-off.
The Auburn University sprinter’s rapid rise has been one of the season’s standout stories. He also clocked a wind-aided 9.72 seconds to win the NCAA title in June, one of the fastest times run under any conditions, and reached the World Championships final in Tokyo last September, becoming the first Nigerian man to do so since Fasuba in 2007.
Saturday’s win in London adds further weight to Ajayi’s growing profile heading into the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where he is considered one of Nigeria’s leading gold medal hopes in the men’s 100m. He recently became the first Nigerian sprinter to break into World Athletics’ overall top 100 rankings.
