17-year-old Abiola Ogunbanwo has set a new national record by becoming the first Nigerian woman to finish the 100 meters swimming freestyle under a minute.
She achieved the feat on the 28th of July 2021 at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre during the Tokyo Olympics in Japan having won Heat 1 of the swimming event in 59.74 seconds.
With the feat, she has broken a longstanding Nigerian record of 1:00.50 set by Ngozi Monu, which had served as the benchmark since 2007.
Competing in the very first heat of the women’s 100m freestyle event, Abiola Ogunbanwo finished ahead of Andela Antunovic of Montenegro (1:00.01), Nepal’s Gaurika Singh (1:00.11), and Mineri Gomez of Guam (1:04.00) to keep alive, at the time of racing, her hopes of advancing to the semi-finals.
Having entered the competition with a Personal Best of 1:00.77, going under one-minute was going to be a big improvement for her, and it showed in how strongly she finished particularly in the last 50 meters of the race.
Although she finished in an overall ranking of 48th place when the six heats were concluded, missing out on a place in the last 16 athletes who made it to the semifinal stage.
Living in Canberra, Australia, Ogunbanwo moved to Kazan, Russia at the start of the year as part of a FINA scholarship for athletes from around the world who have immense potential in the sport.
Abiola Ogunbanwo
Abiola Ogunbanwo is a Nigerian swimmer. In 2019, she represented Nigeria at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships held in Gwangju, South Korea. She competed in the women’s 100 metre freestyle and women’s 200 metre freestyle events. In 2018, she competed in two events at the 2018 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 meters) held in Hangzhou, China.
