Azamati, Saminu face tough 100m Heats at Tokyo World Championships

Ghana’s Benjamin Azamati and Abdul-Rasheed Saminu will line up in two of the most competitive heats of the men’s 100 metres at the World Athletics Championships on Saturday.

The heats begin at 11:35 a.m. Ghana time (11:35 GMT), with Azamati racing at 12:03 GMT in Heat 5, while Saminu takes to the track at 12:17 GMT in Heat 7.

Only the top three finishers from each heat will automatically progress to the semi-finals, making qualification a stern test.

Azamati, with a SB of 9.98s this year, faces reigning world silver medallist Letsile Tebogo (10.03s) of Botswana, former Olympic champion Andre De Grasse (10.15s), of Canada, and the in-form American Courtney Lindsey (9.82s). He will also run alongside Germany’s Lucas Ansah-Peprah, who has Ghanaian roots.

In Heat 7, Saminu goes head-to-head with some of the fastest men in the world — Africa’s sprint king Akani Simbine of South Africa, Commonwealth Games champion Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya, Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme, and Japan’s Hakim Sani Brown, who has a Ghanaian father.

The Netherlands’ Elvis Afrifa, also of Ghanaian parentage, completes a heat with heavy Ghanaian flavour.

In fact, five of the athletes across the two heats have Ghanaian connections — Azamati, Saminu, Ansah-Peprah, Afrifa, and Sani Brown.

With the odds stacked high, Azamati and Saminu will need near-perfect races to book their place in the semi-finals and keep Ghana’s hopes alive in the blue-riband event.