Precious Nzeakor

Happy birthday to Nigeria’s sprinter Precious Nzeakor, a two-time national champion who has been named after this month her whole life.

Start with the handle, because it is perfect and almost certainly deliberate. **Peridot is the birthstone of August.** She was born on 17 August, and the name she has chosen for herself online is the gemstone of the month she arrived in. This magazine writes a great many birthday posts. Nobody has ever handed us one that neat.

The athletics is serious. Precious won the Nigerian national 200m title in Benin City in 2024, as a teenager, and then went to the United States and came home the following August to **retain it** in 23.53, as a college freshman. Two national championships in two years, on either side of an ocean. Her personal bests of 11.24 over 100m and 23.03 over 200m were both run at the NCAA East First Round, and her first season at Alabama earned her Honorable Mention All-America status. Before that she wore the Nigerian vest at the World U20 Championships in Lima, in the 200m and the 4x100m.

She races for the University of Alabama in the SEC, which is the deepest sprint conference in the world, and she is studying **nursing** while she does it. And she has already said out loud what she is chasing. After winning in Benin she told Nigerian media exactly this: she wants to run 22s in the 200m, having ended the previous year with a 23. She is currently at 23.03. The door is right there.

Her bio is two lines, and the second is Jeremiah 29:11 — for I know the plans I have for you.

Happy birthday, Precious! Long life and prosperity, and here is to the day that 23 becomes a 22. Oshey! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇳🇬