The 25-year-old African 400m record previously held by Nigeria’s Falilat Ogunkoya has been broken by 18-year-old Namibian Christene Mboma.

Mboma achieved the feat on Wednesday at the 2021 World Athletics Continental Tour, Bydgoszcz, Poland, where she ran the distance in 48.54 seconds, faster than Ogunkoya’s 49.10 seconds set at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Mboma in overtaking Falilat Ogunkoya as the African 400m record holder becomes the only African woman representing an African nation to run under 49 seconds and the first athlete under the age of 20 to run less than 49 seconds. She is now the seventh fastest 400m sprinter of all time.

The Namibian’s time was the fastest in the world this year and makes her the woman to beat at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

An ecstatic Mboma reacting to her victory to TV Sport, said: “I could not believe I will be so fast. I’m really impressed.”

Huge prospect was noticed in the lad last April at a meeting in Zambia and a local championship in Namibia where she ran under 49.30 seconds twice (49.24 and 49.22 seconds respectively).

Ogunkoya’s former compatriot, Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu who represented Bahrain, two years ago in Doha, Qatar at the World Athletics Championship using the adopted name, Salwa Eid Naser also ran an impressive 48.14 seconds, the third world’s fastest time to win gold.

Mboma’s incredible performance in Poland is reminiscent of what former Nigeria junior international, Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu did in the colours of her adopted country, Bahrain, two years ago in Doha, Qatar at the World Athletics Championship with an incredible 48.14 seconds which was the third fastest time of all time to win the gold.

Aside from Ogunkoya, Chioma Ajunwa had also in May, lost her 7.12m African long jump record set also at the Atlanta Olympics after compatriot, Ese Brume at a meet in California, USA made a jump on 7.17m.