Favour Ofili Makes Olympic Debut, Advances to 200-Meter Semifinals

PARIS, France – Day three of track & field competition at the Olympics was highlighted by Favour Ofili making her Olympic debut in the 200 meter at Stade de France in Saint Denis.

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A long awaited four years has led to Favour Ofili’s Olympic debut for Nigeria. Due to negligence from the Athletics Federation of Nigeria and the Nigerian Olympic Committee, she was denied participation in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. This week she was denied participation in the 100 meter due to the same organizations failing her, but she was able to make her much awaited debut in the 200 meter on Sunday.

Ofili put on a stellar performance in the 200m heats, clocking a season-best time of 22.24 seconds (+0.5 m/s) in the sixth heat out of lane two. The LSU-record holder made up the stagger early on and cruised through the line ahead of Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith. Overall, she finished second in the heats behind USA’s Gabby Thomas who bested her by .04 seconds.

“Star Girl” will make her 200m semifinals appearance on Monday at 1:45 p.m. CT.

The day finished for the LSU alumni with Natoya Goule representing Team Jamaica in the women’s 800-meter semifinals. Goule led a majority of the way in heat one, but slowly fell behind and finished sixth in her heat with a time of 1:59.14.

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