Benjamin Azamati, the holder of Ghana’s national 100-meter record, qualified for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo at the McNabb Sprint Series in California with a season-best time of 9.98 seconds.
The sprinter’s performance is his best of the season, and he is tied for 17th on the official men’s 100-meter qualifying list for the world championship. Under legal wind conditions, it is Azamati’s fourth sub-10 performance in his career.
Azamati is a vital member of Ghana’s 4×100-meter relay team and the country’s fastest man over 100 meters. He had previously run the back straight at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, where Ghana set the current national record of 38.07 seconds.
In order to concentrate on qualifying for the individual 100-meter event, which he has now accomplished, the 26-year-old recently chose not to compete for Ghana in the Guangzhou World Relays, despite having advanced to the semi-finals of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Being the first Ghanaian to earn a spot at the World Championship, Azamati’s qualification represents a significant milestone.
With times of 10.12s, 10.07s, 10.02s, and 9.93s (2.9m/s) in his prior meets, followed by his 9.98s performance this season, Azamati has continuously improved his performance.
In the nine wind-legal sub-10s performances that Ghana has ever had, Azamati has four, Leo Myles-Mills and Aziz Zakari have two, and Joseph Paul Amoah has one.
By Najat Adamu
