Middle distance specialist Agnes Abu has obliterated the 14-year-old 800m indoor national record by more than 2 seconds clocking 2 minutes 2.30 seconds.

Abu, a student of the Middle Tennessee State University in the USA, bested Akosua Serwaa’s 2 minutes 4.61 seconds national record set on 29th February 2004 in Leipzig, Germany with her personal best performance to write a new chapter into her own career and Ghana’s history.

Having clocked the fastest 800m times both indoor and outdoor by a Ghanaian female athlete since 2015, Abu now tops the all-time 800m indoor list in Ghana ahead of Akosua Serwaa 2 minutes 4.61 seconds (2004) and Martha Bissah 2 minutes 6.59 seconds (2018).

Conversely, Abu is the first Ghanaian since 1998 (Leo Myles-Mills) to lead indoor event rankings in the prestigious and world-renowned US universities league know as NCAA D1. 

As at 25th February 2018, she was tied for first with 2 minutes 2.30 seconds in the NCAA 800m, while Martha Bissah was ranked 35th with 2 minutes 6.30 seconds and Patience Akanwogba ranked 100th plus with 2 minutes 15.34 seconds.

With the 2018 Commonwealth Games fast approaching, Abu is ranked 10th in the 800m and tied for 5th on the current 2018 African indoor rankings.

If history is to repeat itself, Abu could be in line to break the national 800m outdoor record this season which is also held by Akosua Serwaa. The challenge would be finding national support for Agnes to continue her blossoming career since support from her university runs out this year.

It will be recalled that after Akosua Serwaa set the then new national indoor record in 2004, she went on to break the national 800m outdoor record of 1minutes:59.60 on 2nd July 2004 at the Golden Gala in Rome, Italy.

Abu holds two other national records in the 1500m outdoor with 4 minutes 17.75 seconds and the one mile indoor record of 4 minutes 43.61 seconds.

She is one of 37 Ghanaian athletes currently on Ghana Athletics Association (GAA) sourced scholarships in US Colleges and Universities. The Prof. Francis Dodoo led GAA Youth Development program begun in 2012.