NCAA Division 1: Akwu Earns 200m All-American Crown

Middle Tennessee trackman and Nigeria sprinter, Noah Akwu during the weekend was crowned NCAA All-American in the 200-meter dash for his performance at the 2011 NCAA Indoor Track and Field National Championships. Akwu placed sixth in a final round time of 20.86 to earn the honor.

Entering last weekend final, the Egume native placed fifth in the preliminary heat also in a time of 20.86 to qualify for the championship round, both times missed Middle Tennessee Mardy Scale’s 20.84 seconds.

With the title, Akwu becomes the second Middle Tennessee athlete to be named All-American in the 200-meter dash. Christian Nsiah was crowned such in 1996. He is also the first Blue Raider to win All-American in a track event since Orlando Reid in 2007 and first male indoor winner since Juan Walker in 2006.

His sixth place finish gives the team three points at the championships.

The sprinter, who was some weeks back crowned athlete of the week said Nigerians should expect a better Akwu during the Mobil track in June and the IAAF World Championships coming up in August in Korea.

According to Noah’s Coach, “We do not have a lot of athletes take All-American in this race,” he said. “Often our runners will qualify for this race as well as the jumping event and they interfere with each other. I am very proud of Noah to run that time twice in the same night”

Akwu will rejoin his teammates as they will compete at the 2011 Rhodes Open Meet this weekend.