Ned Justeen Azemia (born 21 August 1997) is a

Seychellois This article is about the demographic features of the population of Seychelles, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. About ...

hurdler who specialises in the

400 metres hurdles The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women. On a standard outdoor track, 400 metres is the length of the inside lane, once a ...

. He is the current Seychellois record holder in the event. Azemia competed in the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

in Rio de Janeiro in the 400 metres hurdles. He has also competed in two World Junior Championships, an

African athletics championships The African Championships in Athletics is a continental athletics event organized by the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), the continental association for the sport in Africa. Since its inaugural edition in 1979 it was at first organised ...

and an

African Youth Games The African Youth Games is an international multi-sport event held every four years to complement the current Africa Games. The first games was hosted by Rabat, Morocco. This international sportive event has been created by Lassana Palenfo, cu ...

. Azemia has also raced over the flat

400 metres The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics (sport), athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor runn ...

distance.

Competition

Azemia's debut at an international athletics competition was at the

2014 African Youth Games The 2nd African Youth Games took place in Gaborone, Botswana's capital city from 22 to 31 May 2014. The Games featured approximately 2000 athletes from 51 African countries competing in 21 sports. Gambia, Eritrea and Mauritania were the only Afri ...

, where he won the bronze medal in the 400 metres hurdles with a time of 53.27 seconds. His placing at the African Youth Games qualified him for the 2014 World Junior Championships, where he competed in the

. He was disqualified from his heat and therefore eliminated from the competition. He then competed at the

2014 African Championships in Athletics The 2014 African Championships in Athletics was held in Marrakech, Morocco from 10 to 14 August 2014. The competition was the 19th edition of Africa senior championships. The competition served as preparation to African athletes for the next conti ...

in the

. Azemia raced in heat two and ran a time of 55.72 seconds. He was 6.39 seconds slower than the heat winner,

Nicholas Bett Nicholas Kiplagat Bett (27 January 1990 – 8 August 2018) was a Kenyan track and field athlete who competed in the 400 metres hurdles. His personal best for the event is 47.79 seconds. He was a world champion in the event, having won in 2015, an ...

of Kenya. Azemia failed to qualify for the next round. Azemia also competed in the

4 × 100 metres relay The 4 × 100 metres relay or sprint relay is an athletics track event run in lanes over one lap of the track with four runners completing 100 metres each. The first runners must begin in the same stagger as for the individu ...

as part of a Seychelles team. The team reached the final but didn't race in it. Azemia competed at the IAAF World U20 Championships in July 2016 and was knocked out of the

in the semi-final round after his time of 51.64 seconds was not quick enough to qualify for the final. Earlier in the competition, he had run a Seychellois national junior record time of 51.50 seconds, to finish second in his heat and qualify for the semi-final round. At the

, Azemia competed in the

. Azemia, who was the youngest Seychellois athlete at the Games, was drawn in heat three, a heat containing the London 2012 bronze medalist

Javier Culson Javier Culson Pérez (born 25 July 1984) is a Puerto Rican athlete and Olympiad bronze medalist who specialises in the 400-metre hurdles. After becoming involved with the discipline in his late teen years, he entered the podium in some regiona ...

. In the race on 15 August 2016, Azemia ran a time of 50.74 seconds. Azemia's time was a personal best (beating his previous best of 51.09), and a new Seychellois national record. It was also a new Seychellois national junior record. After the race, Azemia told the Seychelles News Agency that "he knew going into the race that it would be difficult to qualify for the next round, but he was nevertheless happy with his performance".

Seychelles Athletics Federation Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

secretary Wilfred Adrienne said that, "It

he race He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

was great, an impressive performance for someone his age at such a high-level competition and we he Seychelles Athletics Federationare proud of him". Azemia's time was the 43rd-quickest out of 47 athletes. Azemia's time was 0.97 seconds slower than the slowest athlete to progress to the next round and, therefore, he was eliminated. He competed in the men's 400 metres hurdles event at the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

. Azemia competed at the collegiate level for the University of Texas at El Paso.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Azemia, Ned Justeen 1997 births Living people Seychellois male hurdlers Olympic athletes for Seychelles Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2019 African Games African Games competitors for Seychelles Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics