Gina Bass won a close women’s 100m contest at the African Athletics Championships in Cote d’Or, Mauritius, becoming the first athlete from The Gambia to win a senior continental title.

The five-day championships got under way on Wednesday and will continue until Sunday (June 12), and 14 titles have been decided already.

The women’s 100m was one of the tightest battles of the championships so far, but world 200m finalist Bass emerged victorious in a wind-assisted 11.06 (4.8m/s) from Niger’s Aminatou Seyni (11.09) and South Africa’s Carina Horn (11.14).

Bass had improved her own national record to 11.08 (0.1m/s) in the semifinals. Seyni won the other semifinal in a wind-assisted 11.05 (3.2m/s) but Bass prevailed in the showdown between the pair in the final on Thursday (June 9).

The men’s 100m final was even closer than the women’s as just three thousandths of a second separated eventual winner Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya from Akani Simbine of South Africa. 

Omanyala was awarded the verdict with both men clocking 9.93 in another heavily wind-assisted final (4.5m/s). South Africa’s Henricho Bruintjies was third in 10.01.