Abu Sets New 800 Million Indoor National Record

Middle distance specialist, Agnes Abu has run a new time to break a 14-year-old 800m indoor national record.

Abu, a student of the Middle Tennessee State University in the USA, improved Akosua Serwaa's 2:4.61 seconds national record set on February 29, 2004 in Leipzig, Germany with her personal best performance of 2:2.30secs to record a new chapter in Ghana's athletics 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 2:4.61 seconds (2004) and Martha Bissah's 2:6.59secs (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 known as NCAA D1.

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.

Abu could be in line to break the national 800m outdoor record this season which is also held by Akosua Serwaa but the challenge would be finding national support for Agnes to continue her blossoming career.

Serwaa set the then new national indoor record in 2004 and went on to break the national 800m outdoor record of 1:59.60 secs on July 2, 2004 at the Golden Gala in Rome, Italy.

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

She is one of 37 Ghanaian athletes currently on Ghana Athletics Association (GAA) sourced scholarships in US Colleges and Universities.

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