Athletics - Sicobo erases 29-year-old Seychelles 100m record |17 March 2017

Sprinter Dylan Sicobo has managed a feat no other sprinter has been able to do in almost 30 years!

With a time of 10.46 seconds the young sprinter has erased the Seychelles male senior 100m sprint record, which was set way back on August 7, 1987.

Currently training at the Centre international d'athlétisme de Maurice (Ciam) in Mauritius, 21-year-old Sicobo has been gaining high level preparation for a while now and it was evident as he set a new Seychelles record time of 10.46 seconds during a competition in Mauritius last weekend.

Sicobo’s performance sees him surpass Cyril Brioche’s time of 10.51 seconds ‒  a record set way back on August 7, 1987 at the All-Africa Games in Kenya.

In a 2009 interview with sports journalist Gerard Govinden who is now the deputy chief executive of the National Information Services Agency (Nisa) and editor of the Seychelles NATION newspaper, Brioche stated his desire to see someone break his record.

“They (the records) have been there for too long. In fact, I think they should have been long gone. Records are made to be broken. When they are broken, it proves that Seychelles’ track and field is progressing,” he said at the time.

He must surely have a smile on his face when he learns of Sicobo’s achievement.

Formerly a student at the Seychelles Institute of Technology (SIT), many may remember Sicobo already setting records at a young age, but this must go down as perhaps his proudest moment and is a true testament that Seychelles’ athletics is indeed progressing, especially after another long-standing hurdles record was broken last year by another youngster ‒ Ned Azemia.

Certainly at such a young age Sicobo, who expressed his delight at achieving this record on social media, must surely feel he has much more to give and perhaps he might even someday run below the 10-second mark.  Who knows?

The current men's world record is 9.58 seconds set by Jamaica's Usain Bolt in 2009, while the women's world record of 10.49 seconds set by American Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988 remains unbroken.

On the continent, the 100m sprint record stands at 9.85 seconds and it is being held by Nigeria’s Olusoji Fasuba since 2006.

S. N.