Enekwechi sets new national record, personal best
Nigerian shot put thrower Chukwuebuka Enekwechi set a new national record and personal best with a throw of 21.91m at the 2024 Prefontaine Classic, Hayward Field, Eugene, Oregon, USA over the weekend.
The throw earned him third-place behind Joe Kovacs (23.13m) and Payton Otterdahl (22.16m), while another athlete of Nigerian of descent, Josh Awotunde, finished fourth with a throw of 21.53m, ahead of Tom Walsh (21.33m) in fifth place.
Enekwechi has yet to break the 22-metre mark, but his 21.78m effort in LA last year was a mere two centimetres shy of his former personal best. But great things came from the 2020 Olympics finalist at Hayward Field, who put himself in good positions in major finals for years, preparing for a breakthrough.
Ranked 10th in the world, Enekwechi thus trashed his previous national record of 21.77m, which earned him a win over Brazilian favourite Darlan Romani at the 35th Grande Prêmio Brasil Caixa de Atletismo on April 28, 2019.
His winning mark added one centimetre to the Nigerian record set three years earlier by Stephen Mozia and also moved Enekwechi up to second place on the African all-time list, just 20 centimetres behind continental record-holder Janus Robberts.
His former indoor personal best stood at 21.80, which he set at Schifflange in 2019, going into that year’s African Games, which he won with a 21.48m throw, the Games record.
The 31-year-old thus surpassed the 21.10-metre Olympic qualifying standard set for the sole purpose of qualifying athletes with exceptional performances unable to qualify through the IAAF World Rankings pathway, which allows a country to enter up to three athletes if all athletes meet the entry standards or qualify by ranking during the qualifying period. This has been in place since the 1930 Olympic Congress.
