Abdul Hakim Sani Brown, center, just after crossing the finish line during his men’s 100 meters semi-final at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
13:36 JST, August 5, 2024
PARIS — Japanese sprinter Abdul Hakim Sani Brown failed to reach the final of the men’s 100 meters at the Paris Olympics on Sunday despite improving his personal best to 9.96 seconds.
Abdul Hakim Sani Brown grabs his head after missing the 100m final.
The 25-year-old finished fourth in the third semi-final heat. The top two finishers in each semi-final and the next two fastest overall advanced to the eight-man final.
In his nine-man semi-final, Sani Brown had the fifth-fastest reaction time. “I was in good shape this time and I started the race with all my energy,” he said.
He started to fall behind in the final stages of the race. “I was told I could keep up if I ran my own race, but I was running a little too far.”
After the first two semi-finals, the benchmark for qualifying outside the top two was set at 9.93. In the third semi-final, Kishane Thompson of Jamaica and Fred Kerley of the United States finished in 9.80 and 9.84 respectively. Sani Brown finished fourth in the semi-final and tenth overall, missing out on a place in the final by three hundredths of a second.
At the 2023 World Athletics Championships, Sani Brown ran a time of 9.97 in the semi-final, equaling his personal best at the time.
In his first round on Saturday, Sani Brown broke the record for a Japanese athlete at the Olympics, clocking a 10.02. “I keep going up and up,” he declared before breaking the record again in the semi-finals.
“The chasm [with the top athletes] “The crisis has eased, but the overall level is rising rapidly, and I have a deep feeling that it is not enough to catch up little by little,” he said.
