The National Sports Commission (NSC) has commended Team Nigeria to the just concluded Africa Athletics Championships (AAC) which ended in Marrakech, Morocco, on Thursday for their brilliant performance.
Blessing Okagbare
Deputy Director of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Dr. Ademola Are praised the team for making the country pound.
He said: “We are happy with the performance. This goes a long way in showing that President Goodluck Jonathan’s investment in sports through the NSC is yielding fruits”.
Team Nigeria put up a brilliant performance in both track and field events to finish tops at the Championships.
One of the events that gave Team Nigeria the lead in Morocco includes the 100m women event which was won by Commonwealth Games record holder Blessing Okagbare.
She won the event in a new championship record, defeating her closest rival to the title. Also, the men and women’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay also won as well, with Okagbare anchoring the female team to gold in 43.56secs, while Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana won silver and bronze with 43.99secs and 44.06secs respectively.
Other members of the quartet include Gloria Asumnu, Dominique Duncan and Lawreta Ozoh. It was Nigeria’s fourth consecutive win of the title.
In the men’s race, it was Team Nigeria all the way as Ogho-Oghene Egwero, Monzavous Edwards, Obinna Metu and Mark Jelks stormed to first position in 38.80secs. Ghana and Algeria completed the top three spots.
In the men’s 400m hurdles, Amaechi Morton expectedly picked the silver medal behind reigning Commonwealth Games champion, Cornel Fredericks (48.92s) while the second Nigerian in the race, Miles Ukaoma who stumbled on a hurdle, placed seventh with 50.40secs.
Quarter miler Folashade Abugan also returned Team Nigeria to the top of the women’s 400m by winning the gold medal 16 years after Falilat Ogunkoya successfully completed a 200m/400m double in Dakar, Senegal.
Abugan profited immensely from the misfortune of Botswana’s perennial winners, Amantle Monthso who tested positive for a banned substance at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland to win her first African title in a photo-finish with Zambia’s Kabange Mupopo as both athletes were clocked at 51.21 seconds with another Nigerian, Patience Okon George picking the bronze medal. It would be recalled that Abugan won the silver medal in Glasgow just under a fortnight ago.
In the women’s Discus Throw, Chinwe Okoro broke Monia Kari of Tunisia’s 58.46m championships record with a new 59.79m personal best to retain the title she first won two years ago in Porto Novo, Benin Republic. She remains the second Nigerian woman after Grace Apiafi (1988) to win the gold medal. Okwelogu Nwanneka also of Nigeria won the silver medal (51.66m). A delighted Okoro whose any of her four legal throws could have won the gold is already eyeing a better performance at next month’s IAAF Continental Cup which will also hold in Marrakech.
Nigeria’s 110m hurdlers made a clean sweep of the medals in the event last Wednesday night, leaving their Algerian, South African and Malianrivals trailing in their wake on Day-four of the competition.
For the women long jump, Ese Brume’s leap of 6.50m took her to the top of the standings with Chinazom Amadi, another Nigerian, followed closely with a silver winning jump of 6.40m. Brume, the reigning national champion, overcame her disappointing performance at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Oregon, to win gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow barely a week later.
