After a highly promising start to the year, young Divine Iheme has once again made headlines. Following his first world record last summer, he came incredibly close to breaking another world record during his indoor 60-meter return. Clearly, it was just a matter of time…
New World Record for “Lightning Divine.”
His 60-meter return had hinted at great things, having narrowly missed the 15-year-old world record by just two hundredths of a second. On January 5, 2025, this world record was broken twice by the prodigy. The American J-Mee Samuels’ record, which had stood since 2003, was finally surpassed at the BFTTA OPEN in Lee Valley (northeast of London). Competing against adults, Divine Iheme first won his heat in 6.72 seconds, setting a new world record. Then, in the final, despite finishing fourth in an exceptionally fast race, Iheme lowered the record by one hundredth of a second (6.71 seconds), placing it just two hundredths off Mark Lewis Francis’ U17 national record and within the top 20 U20 national performances of all time.
A Supersonic Final.
Although Divine Iheme set a world record, he only took fourth place because three other sprinters ran faster. The first of them, John Otugade, even managed to achieve the world’s best performance of the season, with a personal best that was seven hundredths of a second faster. A lawyer by profession and a semi-professional athlete, Otugade had a breakthrough year last year, improving his 60-meter record by two-tenths of a second and running 10.18 seconds for the 100 meters. The 29-year-old athlete has now met the qualifications for the European Indoor Athletics Championships (March 6-9 in Apeldoorn, Netherlands).
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