Samuel Ogazi has won Nigeria’s first-ever gold medal in the men’s 400 meters at the Commonwealth Games (CWG). The 20-year-old crossed the finish line with a gap of about six meters between him and the chasing pack as he clocked 44.25 seconds to win the event’s final at the Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland, on Saturday. Ogazi was just an infinitesimal 10 milliseconds shy of the event’s Commonwealth Games record of 44.24 seconds set by Kirani James of Grenada in 2014. The closest a Nigerian had previously gone to winning the CWG men’s 400m title was in 1994 when Sunday Bada won a bronze medal. Ogazi came to Glasgow as the fastest in the world this year, and the absence of Botswana’s Collen Kebinatshipi, the reigning world champion in the event, further confirmed the Kaduna-born runner as the favourite for the one-lap crown. Drawn in lane five for the final, Ogazi refused to buckle as Jereme Richards of Trinidad and Tobago, in an adjacent lane, matched him for strides in the first 200m. Ogazi timed his explosiveness well and fully pulled away from his opponents in the final 150m. Richards took silver, and South Africa’s Zakhiti Nene grabbed the bronze medal.