All Africa Games: Athletics swell Team Nigeria’s medal haul

Despite a little setback, athletics on Tuesday added three more gold medals to the total haul of Team Nigeria at the ongoing All African Games in Congo, Brazzaville.

Junior athlete, Amusan Oluwatobiloba, set the tone with a spectacular display in female hurdles event,storming to gold ahead of other top favourite.

Nigeria also won bronze in the female hurdles event.

Also, Blessing Okagbare made her presence count in Congo as she ran the third leg for the women’s quartet, en route to winning the 4x100m relay event gold in 43.11secs, but the male sprints relay quartet were disqualified for baton exchange outside the restricted line.

There was more celebration in the field events, as the women’s javelin saw Nigeria’s Kelechi Nwanaga threw a distance of 52.70m to snatch gold ahead of Mery Zuta of Ghana who won the silver with her distance throw of 50.93m.

Back on the tracks, in the women 400m event, national champion, Patience Okon George was beaten to the gold medal by Kabange Mupopo of Zambia who returned in 50.22secs ahead of 50.71secs by the Nigerian, while Adeloye Oluwatosin and Margaret Etim came 4th and 5th respectively in 51.82 and 52.64secs.

Sadly there was no medal of any shade for Nigeria in the men’s 400m as Orukpe Erayokan came 6th in the event with a time of 45.73secs, while Isaac Makwala of Botswana won in 44.35secs while Boniface Mweresa of Kenya (45.01secs) and Onkabetse Nkobolo of Botswana (45.50secs) won the silver and bronze respectively.