United States-based Nigerian sprinter, Udodi Onwuzurike has qualified for the 2025 World Championships being held in Tokyo, as he moved above Alaba Akintola as the highest-ranked Nigerian man in the 200m event in the weekly update on the rankings by World Athletics.

Before the update, the former world U-20 champion was ranked the second best in Nigeria and 87th in the world behind Akintola, who was ranked 71st best in the world.

However, after his incredible 20.29-second run at the Memorial van Damme Diamond League meeting last week in Brussels, Belgium, the 2023 NCAA 200m champion got a ranking score of 1176 points, a massive placement score of 150, which equates to another massive performance score of 1326.

He now has an average ranking score of 1214 points, which moved him above Akintola, who remains at a ranking score of 1182 points from last week, in the World ranking.

Onwuzurike has now moved from 87th to 45th in the world ranking and has secured for himself a place in the World Championships as the 43rd of the 48 athletes needed to compete in the 200m in Tokyo next month.

He, however, still has a chance of seeking automatic qualification via the Wild Card route if he wins the 200m event at the Diamond League final in Zurich today, following the Athletics Federation of Nigeria’s (AFN) decision to take only athletes ranked within the first 20 of their events.

Unless the AFN is ready to jettison that criterion, what this means is that the likes of Onwuzurike (45th in 200m), Israel Okon (40th in 100m), Chidi Okezie (33rd in 400m), Prestina Ochonogor (35th in long jump), Chioma Onyekwere-Lyons (27th in discus throw) and a few others will watch the World Championships on television.

Only multiple gold medalists, Ese Brume, has qualified through this route (13th in long jump) if the AFN are to stick by the rules they have made.