Nigeria’s 400m hurdles star, Ezekiel Nathaniel, has promised that his record-breaking performance at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo will inspire the next generation of athletes, despite narrowly missing out on a medal.
The 22-year-old clocked 47.11 seconds in Friday’s final, lowering his own Nigerian record and placing fourth overall. His time made him only the second Nigerian, after Henry Amike in 1987, to reach a World Championships final in the event.
“I hope this performance will inspire young Nigerian athletes,” Nathaniel said after the race. “This is a great opportunity to learn from the world’s best athletes.”
The final produced drama as American Rai Benjamin, chasing his first world title after two silvers and a bronze, stormed home in 46.52 seconds. He was briefly disqualified for crashing into the last hurdle, a ruling that temporarily pushed Nathaniel into third place. The decision was overturned after an appeal, reinstating Benjamin as champion.
Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos finished second in 46.84 seconds, while Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba secured bronze in 47.06 seconds.
Nathaniel accepted the reversal calmly. “It’s a fair call. He put in a lot of work to get that medal, and if they are trying to rip off from that, I don’t think that’s fair. He didn’t deliberately knock over the hurdle; that could happen to anyone,” he said.
Born in 2003, Nathaniel’s rise has been swift. A former 800m runner, he competes for Baylor University in Texas, where he has built a reputation as one of the finest collegiate hurdlers in history. In 2022, he broke Amike’s 35-year-old national record when he ran 48.42 seconds as a freshman at the Big 12 Conference in Texas.
This year, he accelerated his progress with a series of remarkable performances. In May at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, Nathaniel broke his own record twice in two days, running 47.91 seconds in the heats before improving to 47.89 seconds in the final. That performance set new marks for Nigeria, Baylor University, and the Big 12 meet itself.
The highlight of his collegiate season came in June when he stormed to the NCAA Outdoor Championships title in Eugene, Oregon. He clocked 47.49 seconds in the final, the third fastest time in NCAA history, after becoming the first man to break 48 seconds in a semifinal with 47.86 seconds.
Nathaniel later improved his record again to 47.31 seconds at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Poland, before lowering it further in Tokyo to 47.11 seconds.
“I still have a lot of potential. I am pleased because I did my best and I ran a personal record. I have it in me and just need to wait for the right time. For now, I am enjoying the process,” he said.
While his fourth-place finish mirrors Amike’s 1987 result in Rome, athletics officials believe Nathaniel has now established himself among the world’s elite quarter-mile hurdlers. His latest achievement also gives Nigeria hope of future podium finishes in an event where the country has long lacked global medals.
Nigeria’s campaign in Tokyo ended with Tobi Amusan as the nation’s only medallist, but the federation described the outcome as progress compared to Budapest 2023, when Team Nigeria returned empty-handed.
