Fasu-bang!
Adomola Olajire
Posted to the Web: Saturday, May 20, 2006
THE VANGUARD Newspaper, Nigeria
Last weekend, in Doha, capital of oil-rich Qatar in the Middle East, a superstar was born!
Before last Saturday, Olusoji Adetokunboh Fasuba was just another promising Nigerian sprinter, on the upswing, though. He had taken the men’s 100m silver at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March, but by running 9.84 seconds in Doha to set a new African record in the event, Fasuba became a global name soon to be courted by all.
Born on July 9, 1984, Fasuba was in his diapers when the likes of Chidi Imoh and Innocent Egbunike did the speed business for Nigeria. Imoh had a barrel over the Nigeria scene in the 80s, with Olapade Adeniken coming in the late 80s. When Imoh ran a wind-aided 9.92 seconds at the 4th All-Africa Games in Nairobi, Kenya in 1987, many felt no one could go faster for another age to come. Imoh’s best was 10.00s, ran in 1986. But in a few years, Ola Adeniken ran a minimally wind-assisted 9.95s, and then Daniel Effiong (or is it Philips?) ran a legal 9.98s, before Davidson Ezinwa, silver medallist at the 1990 Commonwealth Games behind Linford Christie, did 9.94 seconds in eastern Europe.
Uche Emedolu has ran 9.97s, but Seun Ogunkoya did a legal 9.92 seconds in 1998. All these were at the same time African records, in the years that Nigeria used to dominate the sprinting side of athletics in the continent. But in 1996, Namibian legend, Frankie Fredericks set a new mark of 9.86 seconds at a meeting in Lausanne. Fredericks won silver medals in 100m and 200m at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He also won the world title in the 200m in Athens in 1997. Many also remember his 200m race in the Atlanta final, in which he broke Petro Mennea’s 17-year-old mark of 19.76s, by running 19.68s, but was nonetheless second to the famed Michael Johnson, who ran 19.34s.
Fasuba’s 9.84s should be put in proper perspective. In the past few weeks, it looked like the youthful runner was going downhill. He pulled out of the Gateway 2006 National Sports Festival in Ijebu-Ode after having agreed to run for Delta State, and then finished a poor third behind Ghanaian, Aziz Zakari and compatriot, Uchenna Emedolu at the Abuja permit meet.
However, when the chips were down in Qatar, what Fasuba remembered were the fact that he is the reigning Nigeria champion (having won the Commonwealth trials in Abuja in 10.13s, and the reigning vice-champion of the Commonwealth. He came second behind then world record holder, Asafa Powell in Melbourne, running 10.11s, with Emedolu in 4th place.
Fasuba, born to a civil servant father and a Jamaican mother (who is a cousin to Jamaica’s 1976 Olympic 200m champion, Don Quarrie), has made a rather fast progress in three years. He was in the Nigeria 4x100m team that finished 4th at the world championships in Paris in 2003, and was also in the squad that finished 2nd in the event at the 8th All-Africa Games that Nigeria staged in Abuja few months later. But he won the individual 100m event at the Afro-Asian games in India the following month.
A former student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Fasuba won the 100m at the African championships in Brazzaville in 2004 and anchored the relay team to silver, and few months later, picked bronze with the relay team at the Athens Olympics, after the Nigeria team came in behind Great Britain and USA.
Last year, he was semi-finalist at the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki, Finland. His feat at the IAAF Super Tour in Doha marks him out as one of the new stars of world sprinting. That area is not exactly sparsely populated, with the likes of new world record holder, Justin Gatlin, Jamaican Asafa Powell, American Terrence Trammel, Briton Mark Lewis-Francis and Portuguese Francis Obikwelu.
Obikwelu came into prominence with the world junior championships in Sydney in 1996. But he later opted for Portugal, for whom he won the Olympic silver in 2004.
Fasuba’s accomplishment almost drowned the new world record feat of Justin Gatlin, the American world and Olympic champion. Gatlin has shown immense promise in the past two years, and it comes as no surprise that he is only the fourth man in history to hold the world record, world title and Olympic title at the same time.
The others are fellow Americans, Carl Lewis (Olympic title 1988; World title 1991 and World record 1991) and Maurice Greene (World record 1999; Olympic title 2000 and; World title 2001), as well as Canadian Donovan Bailey (World title 1995; World Record 1996 and; Olympic title 1996).
His rise to prominence was at the Athens Olympics, where he beat favoured American, Shawn Crawford and Jamaican Asafa Powell. Powell was 5th in that race. Gatlin went on to win the world title in Helsinki last year.
There has been a lot of talk about who is better between Gatlin and Powell, who comes from a family of sportsmen. But they have only met twice, in the real sense. Powell imploded in the Athens final, and at a meeting in Crystal Palace in 2005, Powell pulled up with hamstring, the same injury that stopped him competing in Helsinki.
All these mean that when the three gladiators (Powell, Gatlin and Fasuba) gather at the Gateshead meet in London on July 11, there would be thunder and brimstone.
Powell set the world mark of 9.77s last year and won the Commonwealth Games title. But is he as good as Gatlin? This outdoor season will provide the answer.
And how far can the Nigerian sensation, Fasuba go? Time, actually, will tell.