NCAA 200m champion Udodi Onwuzurike on leading the Nigerian sprint revolution: 'I can do bigger things'
A former junior world champion, Onwuzurike won the 200m collegiate title in the U.S., and has one of the fastest times of the season in the world. He's one of a handful of up-and-coming Nigerian sprinters.
Athletics
When Udodi Onwuzurike arrived at the 2021 World Athletics U-20 Championships in Nairobi, the then 18-year-old was there for a first major experience on the global stage.
What he left with, too, was a gold medal.
“[That] changed my whole perspective on myself as an athlete, to be able to go out there and win,” Onwuzurike recently told Olympics.com rabout that triumph in the 200m.
“It really changed me: It was the breakthrough moment in my career.”
It put Onwuzurike, who grew up in Detroit but represents Nigeria, on the sprinting map, and earlier this summer he added another coveted victory to his CV: Collegiate 200m champion at the NCAA Championships in Austin, Texas.
“I feel like this year's national championships was one of the fastest I've ever seen and I've been watching this meet since I was in middle school,” Onwuzurike said. “I feel like this year was a historic national meet. And so to be able to win it, that meant a lot.”
He’s not wrong: Noah Lyles’ win at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in the 200m featured five sprinters going under 20 seconds. In Austin, there were four.
“This gives me a lot more confidence going into the World Championships,” Onwuzurike said of the coming Worlds in Budapest. “I also feel like I've changed as a runner; I've matured a lot. And being able to perform on the big stage has me feeling like I can do bigger things.”
Udodi Onwuzurike: Nigerian roots
“I take a lot of pride in running for Nigeria,” Onwuzurike said.
Though he spent his childhood in the Detroit area, the 20-year-old and his family would go back to his parents’ homeland each Christmas holiday to see his grandparents and their extended family – and soak in Udodi’s native culture: “I love going back home,” he said.
His parents grew up in Imo State in Nigeria, a region known for its art, culture and traditional dancing. Though today, both of his grandmothers live in Aba.
“I'm very happy to go back and see what it's like living in Nigeria and see what they're doing there,” he explained. “It takes you away from what is going on in the U.S. and it makes you feel grateful for what you already have.”
“It really humbles me to be able to go back home.”
A football (soccer) fanatic as a kid, Onwuzurike found athletics at age 11 after his family moved to the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield. Having torn his hamstring twice as a senior in high school, he faced challenges on the track and then criticism off of it when he chose Stanford – known for its distance program and not its sprinting prowess – for school.
It made his victory in June that much more special.
“There was so much pressure from so many angles, wanting me to win,” Onwuzurike said of NCAAs. “I also put a lot of pressure on myself, wanting to perform for my school, wanting to make my family and coaches proud. The relief that I felt when I looked up at the jumbotron and saw that I was first, I was like, 'Thank God, I did it.'”
Can Onwuzurike help Nigeria to a relay medal in Paris?
Only twice has a Nigerian man landed on the world podium in a sprint event (100, 200 or 400m): Francis Obikwelu won bronze in the 200m in 1999, 12 years after Innocent Egbunike captured silver in the 400m.
Onwuzurike would like to change that.
But he’s part of a wave of up-and-coming sprinters from his country: Godson Oghenebrume and Favour Ashe (who also have both run collegiately) have top 100m times this season globally; while Usheoritse Itsekiri, Seye Ogunlewe and Alaba Akintola have impressed in the 100 or 200m, as well.
“We have some of the best young sprinters in the world right now,” Onwuzurike said. “We are young... but we can accomplish things now. We're not thinking that 'hopefully we can get something done' when we reach our peak [in the future]. We feel like right now we can get it done. I really feel like we can be a big contender in the 4x100m relay at World Champs.”
A 4x100m medal would be historic, too. Nigeria last won one in 1997, though the men have also won Olympic medals in the event: Barcelona 1992 (silver) and Athens 2004 (bronze).
“I feel like we are growing together,” said Onwuzurike, noting that each of himself, Oghenebrume, Ashe and Akintola are 21 or younger.
After using Worlds in 2022 as a learning experience, Onwuzurike is taking a more exact approach to Budapest: He’ll run only the 200m and 4x100 relay, his 19.76 in the NCAA semi-finals in June the fifth-fastest time this year in an event that is spearheaded by two-time and reigning world champion Lyles.
Lyles has a world-leading time of 19.47 in the 200m as he eyes a three-peat in Budapest.
“I've been watching him my entire life,” Onwuzurike said of Lyles. “So to be in [the 200m] conversation with someone like him, it just means so much.”
EUGENE, OREGON - JULY 2022: Udodi Onwuzurike of Team Nigeria (second from left), in the men's 200m semi-final. Noah Lyles, USA, and Kenneth Bednarek (USA) are on the right. Day five of the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 at Hayward Field on July 19, 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Paris 2024: ‘It would mean so much’
Faith is of the utmost importance to Onwuzurike, who says he calls his mother (who is often too stressed to watch him race live) before a meet so that they can pray together. “We try to do things that really keep me grounded,” he said.
But he has let his mind float to next year’s Olympic Summer Games Paris 2024, and what it would mean for him not only to represent Nigeria but also to excel – even land on the podium.
“Even to consider myself an Olympian is kind of crazy... hopefully I can achieve it,” Onwuzurike said, then added: “I of course am going there with the goal to win [individually], and me and the guys [in the relay], as well.”
Having watched the greatness of Usain Bolt as a kid, Onwuzurike is taking his rise in stride, his confident approach one he hopes will put him in the mix in Budapest – and Paris: “I know I can run fast, too,” he said of facing the likes of Lyles and other top, established pros. “What someone else is doing should not impact what you're doing. As long as I'm staying on my own track, in my own lane, my own space and running my own 200 metres... that's all that matters.”
It's the approach that he will take to Paris – should he qualify – in just about one year’s time.
“The Olympics! It's the pinnacle of track and field. It's the highest high,” he said. “Just getting there would mean so much... [but] to go there and bring back a medal for Nigeria, which has not been done in so long, would literally mean so much. To me, my family, my country... it would mean so much. It would be the best.”