-Okon George, Enekwechi also listed
Sprint hurdler, Tobiloba Amusan, will spearhead Nigeria’s challenge for medals at the IAAF World Indoor Championships which holds this weekend in Birmingham,United Kingdom.
The reigning National Collegiate of Athletics Association (NCAA) Championships and All Africa Games 100m hurdles queen will lead four other athletes viz Chukwuebuka Enekwechi (Shot Put),Chidi Okezie (400m),Patience Okon George (400m) and Lindsay
Lindley (60m Hurdles) to challenge for the individual medals at the competition.
Amusan who will be making her debut in the championships holds a personal best of 7.89 seconds which she ran last month at an
indoor meeting in Albuquerque,New Mexico,USA and will be looking to become the second Nigerian sprint hurdler after Glory Alozie (7.87 seconds) to make a podium appearance in the championships.
Alozie won a silver medal inside the Green Dome Arena in Maebashi,Japan in 1999 to become the first and only Nigerian athlete to win an individual medal at the World Championships indoors and out when she followed up her indoor triumph with a silver medal outdoors in Seville in the summer of that year.
Also aiming to emulate Alozie will be ‘Jesus Hurdler’,Lindley who will also be competing in the same event.
Quatermiler Okon George will be making her second trip to the championships after she anchored the women’s 4x400m team to a fifth place finish four years ago in Sopot, Poland.
This time she will be competing in both the individual 400m and the relay.
Okon George, like Amusan will be aiming for a place in the record books as the second Nigerian after Falilat Ogunkoya to win an individual medal in the quartermile at the championships.
Ogunkoya ran a 51.25 seconds personal best to win a silver medal in Maebashi,Japan in 1999.
For the men,Okezie has a tougher act to follow as he will be pressured to become the second Nigerian world champion in the men’s 400m following policeman Sunday Bada’s feat in 1997 in Paris.
In the shot put,Enekwechi will look to be a stand alone history maker as he will be aiming to become the first Nigerian to win a shot put medal indoors (and out).
Nigeria will also compete in the women’s 4x400m relay with Okon George leading the quartet of Regina George,Glory Onome Nathaniel,Yinka Ajayi and Emerald Egwim.
Regina George is making her third trip to the championships after her misadventure to Sopot in 2014 where she ran the fastest qualifying time (51.60) in the heats only to disappear and failed to appear for the final after it was discovered the
Athletics Federation of Nigerian failed to get her a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) to enable her compete.
A TUE is an exemption that allows an athlete to use, for therapeutic purposes only, an otherwise prohibited substance or method (of administering a substance).
She returned two years later to run the second leg in the women’s 1600 relay team that finished fourth (3:34.03) in the final.
Nigeria has won a total of 11 medals since she made her debut in the championships’ first edition in 1987 in Indianapolis,USA.
The medals are made up of two gold (Olusoji Fasuba,60m and Bada,400m),five silver (Ogunkoya, 400m, Alozie, 60m Hurdles, Bada, 400m, Chioma Ajunwa, Long Jump, Paul Emordi, Long Jump) and four bronze medals (Davidson Ezinwa,60m, Bada, 400m, Francis Obikwelu, 200m, Chidi Imoh, 60m).