Blessing Afrifah is the second Israeli to be crowned world champion in the under-20 class in athletics and the third-best time in history for an athlete under 20 in the 200-meter dash, outdone only by Usain Bolt
Blessing Afrifah won the 200-meter race in the World Athletics U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia Thursday night. The 18-year-old Israeli sprinter set a dazzling new championship record of 19.96 seconds, beating Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo by just six-thousandths of a second in a photo finish.
Calab Law of Australia took the bronze with a time of 20.48 seconds.
Afrifah is the second Israeli to be crowned world champion in the under-20 class in athletics, following Yonatan Kapitolnik, who took the gold for the high jump in the competition in Kenya last year. Israel’s first medal in the under-20 class was Nikita Palli, who won a silver medal in the championship in 2006.
Afrifah’s time was the third best time in history for an athlete under 20 in the 200-meter dash, outdone only by Usain Bolt (19.92 seconds, in 2004) and Erriyon Knighton (19.49 seconds, in April).
Afrifah also set an all-time European record for under 20 and year’s best in both the junior and the senior category in Europe. He is set to take part in the European Athletics Championship this month in Munich.
“I have no words. This was my dream and I’m glad it came true. … I didn’t expect to reach such a level, to go down below 20 seconds is another world, and nobody imagined it.”
Afrifah’s trainer, Yigal (Igor) Balon said: “I intended to reach the podium in this championship, but without numbers. We didn’t know where we could finish but the closer we came to the championship and I saw that everything we planned was happening, the whole story became how to arrive healthy and mentally strong for this test. What’s next? We’ll get to the European Championship and we’ll talk there.”
“The Olympic Committee congratulates Blessing Afrifah, Yigal Balon, the Athletics Association and the Maccabi Athletic Association on the win,” committee head GIli Lustig said, adding that the under-20 achievements in 2022 show the potential for Israel’s Olympic athletes in Los Angeles in 2027.
Afrifah also broke the Israeli record for the 200-meter dash for the seventh time since March. He came to Colombia with a best time of 20.55 seconds, twice breaking the Israeli record on the way to the championship, an improvement of 18 hundredths of a second over his record from last month. This was Afrifah’s second time in the 200-meter dash finals; last year he finished seventh in the finals in Kenya.