'Everything finally pays off': Auburn sprinter Kayinsola Ajayi matches NCAA record, sets new national record for home country of Nigeria
“I was so happy. All the dreams, all the hard work, waking up in the morning to go to practice — everything finally pays off.”
It took Kayinsola Ajayi a bit to find his time on the scoreboard.
He’d just run the 60-meter dash in a searing 6.45 seconds at the SEC Indoor Championships, winning the final with a record-setting run. But he didn’t know in his mind if he’d gotten what he wanted — and maybe the slowest part of the whole process was finding his time on the scoreboard after the race was done.
But then he saw that number: 6.45 — an incredibly special number for Ajayi, because it represented a new school record for Auburn in the 60-meter, even matched the NCAA’s 60-meter record, and most special of all, set a new record for fastest 60-meter time ever run by a Nigerian.
“When I first crossed, I didn’t know it was 6.45. I look up and I saw 6.45 and I was like, ‘Oh damn. I got that record,’” Ajayi with a sly smile, speaking on campus this week. “And I got the collegiate record. So I was so happy. All the dreams, all the hard work, waking up in the morning to go to practice — everything finally pays off.”
Yes, his run last Saturday at SEC Indoors in College Station was the culmination of so much hard work for the Auburn junior: Nigeria’s national record in the 60-meter previously was a 6.48 set by Deji Aliu in 1999 in France. Ajayi matched that record last year, but needed a 6.47 to break it. He did even better with the 6.45, which also matched the NCAA record as he became only the fourth college sprinter ever to run a 6.45 in the 60-meter dash.
It also matches the record time for the entire continent of Africa. He matched the 6.45 ran by Ghana’s Leonard Myles-Mills also in 1999.
“Last year I ran 6.48. I was so close to it last year,” Ajayi explained. “So I knew this year I was going to break it. It’s part of my plan, like, break the Nigerian record, national record, African record. I just want to break all the records,” he smiled.
Next, Ajayi heads to indoor nationals, with one more chance to run the 60-meter indoors this season at the NCAA Indoor Championships March 13-14 in Fayetteville. He’ll have one more chance to shave another hundredth off, and a chance to win national championship gold in the process to go with his SEC gold.
Does he think he can get a 6.44?
“No,” he says, “I think I can do better.”
Ajayi’s journey to the track
Growing up in Nigeria, Ajayi had dreams of becoming a soccer star. That’s the sport he played in his youth. But, he says he didn’t get very far with it. “I was just wasting my parents’ money,” he jokes now, with a laugh. “I didn’t get anywhere in soccer.” He just didn’t have the ball control or touch or whatever it was that he needed to become a top prospect on the pitch.
But, he was fast.
He always knew he was fast.
Eventually a local track coach convinced him to come out to the track, and at 16 or 17 years old he started to get serious about sprinting. “She told me to come to a practice, and I went there. So from there, I started liking it, and I said, ‘Let me give it a try,’” he said. Soon he was running for his state, Lagos State, and competing in events like Nigeria’s National Youth Games, which brings together athletes from all 36 states in Nigeria.
“Then everything just started growing and growing and growing,” he said.
Those World Cup dreams switched to Olympic dreams: He made the Paris Olympics in 2024 competing in the outdoor 100-meter dash, making it to the semifinal before his run ended there. Last fall, he competed at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, this time making it to the final — one hundredth behind Olympic champion Noah Lyles in his semifinal heat — before finishing sixth in the finals.
The trajectory keeps going up for Ajayi, and his times keep getting faster and faster. He still may be the best secret in Auburn athletics, but any race now might just create that sonic boom.
“That has been my dream, to break the Nigerian record, African record, you know?” Ajayi said. “And everything is happening now. I’m just going to doing what I’ve been doing, and I’m going to keep trusting myself.”
This week, Ajayi was named to the watch list for the The Bowerman, track and field’s equivalent to the Heisman Trophy.