Nigeria’s Favour Ofili will be the centre of attraction tonight as she attempts to show the world what they could have seen if she had taken part in the 100m women’s race at the Paris 2024.

She has the winner of the race, Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia to beat and make a bold statement.  Both clashed in the first semi-finals of the race on Monday night where Alfred took first over Ofili. The time difference between the two was just 0.07 seconds. Alfred ran 21.98 seconds while Ofili returned after 22.05.

But a semi-final race is not the same as the final race as both may have just ran the earlier one for qualification reserving energy for the big race.

Also lined up are McKenzie Long, Brittany Brown and Gabrielle Thomas of the United States,  Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita (both British), Jessika Gbai of Cote d’Ivoire,

MIKE ROWBOTTOM,  FOR WORLD ATHLETICS

The morning session on Saturday (Day 3 of Athletics) ended with drama in the decathlon as Canada’s defending champion Damian Warner and Norway’s Sander Skotheim were both unable to register a mark in the pole vault.

An Olympic decathlon best of 53.91m in the discus had lifted Grenada’s Lindon Victor to within one place of a medal after seven events, with Germany’s overnight leader Leo Neugebauer remaining in pole position ahead of Warner and Skotheim after that discipline.

But the medal dreams of Warner and Skotheim were dashed following the pole vault, as they failed to clear their opening heights.

US sprinters Kenny Bednarek, the Tokyo 200m silver medallist, and Fred Kerley, the 2022 world champion, were top qualifiers in the men’s 100m heats as they both clocked 9.97.

The key challengers, including Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson who leads this year’s 100m world list with 9.77, plus USA’s world champion Noah Lyles and defending champion Marcell Jacobs of Italy, also all progressed.

Meanwhile, the first of the newly created repechage rounds, in the women’s 800m, created races of huge excitement, with home athlete Anais Bourgoin generating ear-splitting noise from another packed morning session crowd as she progressed to tomorrow’s semifinals.

Warner, Canada’s defending champion in the decathlon, got his second day of competition off to a successful start as he produced the fastest 110m hurdles time of 13.62, with Ken Mullings of The Bahamas registering 13.70 and France’s Makenson Gletty, massively encouraged by the buzzing crowd, clocking the third best effort of 13.96.

That bunch of 1024 points moved Warner, fourth at the end of the first day, into the lead on 5585, 14 points clear of Puerto Rico’s Ayden Owens-Delerme, with Neugebauer, who leads this year’s world list with 8961, staying in touch in third place on 5560, one place ahead of Norway’s European silver medallist Skotheim on 5543.

Victor’s was the winning flourish in the discus. But Neugebauer, who holds the decathlon world best in the discus of 57.70m, did enough with a second-place 53.33 to retain gold-medal position with 6500 points, 72 ahead of Warner, with Skotheim third on 6326 and Victor fourth on 6311.

But it was all change after the pole vault, as first Skotheim failed all his three attempts at his opening height of 4.50m and then Warner did the same at his opening height of 4.60m. Neugebauer cleared 5.00m and Victor 4.90m, but there were PBs for Estonia’s Janek Oiglane and Norway’s Markus Rooth, who both managed 5.30m.

That took Rooth to 7271 points and he finished the session in second place, behind Neugebauer on 7410 and ahead of Victor on 7191, with only the javelin and 1500m to go.

Morocco reached the Olympic men’s football semi-finals for the first time with a resounding 4-0 win over the United States that included two penalties at the Parc des Princes on Friday.

Morocco dominated from the start to prevail in their first-ever Olympic knockout match and set up a clash with Spain, who claimed a 3-0 win over Japan.

A Fermin Lopez double, who scored in the 11th and 73rd, and an Abel Ruiz effort in the 86th sealed the win for La Roja, who three years ago beat Japan in the semi-finals at the Tokyo Olympics.

Morocco, backed by their passionate supporters who packed the Paris St Germain stadium, opened the scoring in the 29th minute when Soufiane Rahimi earned them a penalty and converted for his fifth goal of the tournament.

Ilias Akhomach doubled their lead with a close-range finish from Abde Ezzalzouli’s cross in a brilliant team move just past the hour mark before PSG’s Achraf Hakimi got on the scoresheet after a fine solo run to make it 3-0 20 minutes from time.

“I felt like I was playing at home in this stadium where I play for my club, but also because our fans were very loud and were here in big numbers,” 25-year-old defender Hakimi told reporters.

“It was an almost perfect game, a very resounding result. The work from the team was superb, we had motivation and after the first goal we were able to find more.

“Fans have been following us all tournament, I hope they can follow us all the way to the final. We want to make them proud.”

Substitute Mehdi Maouhoub sealed the rout with another penalty in stoppage time following a VAR review for a handball.

The U.S., playing in their first Olympic quarter-final for 24 years, were better for a short spell after the break but did not look dangerous and had only one goal attempt in the match.

“We have always aimed for gold here,” forward Akhomach, 20, said. “That’s our mission since we arrived here. And we are going to leave everything on the pitch to achieve that.

“It feels great to know we have two more games guaranteed now but we only think about the gold medal.”

-Reuters