Nigeria suffered from yet another administrative lapse from officials of the track and field delegation at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, as the officials failed to arrange the runners properly for their event, megasportsaena.com reports.
So soon after top athlete, Blessing Okagbare blamed the officials for bungling dope regulations and ended up getting 12 of the team’s top bets disqualified from the Games, the crew again got it wrong in their choice of running positions for the mixed relay.
Rules and regulations guiding the 4×400m mixed relay indicate that teams can select any athlete to fit into a delineated order that starts with a male lead-off runner, followed by two women over the next two laps and a man eventually running the anchor leg.
However, the Nigerian team were the only side to mix things up by starting with a male runner, followed by a female then a male for the third lap and ended with a female, thereby ending the team in green packing early from what is officially known as the 4×400m mixed relay.
Consequently, despite setting a new African record, Nigeria’s quartet of Imaobong Uko, Emmanuel Ojeli, Nathaniel Samson and Patience Okon-George missed out on qualification to the final of the 4x400m mixed relay, as they finished in fifth position with a time of 3:13.60.
Samson gave Okon-George a lead of about 30 metres but she was comfortably passed by all the men in the final leg, as first place went to Belgium, Ireland and Germany were second and third respectively while Spain was fourth.
This is the first appearance of the mixed relay, as it was added along with mixed team events in multiple sports for the 2020 Games, but the rules state that the first three countries in heat one and two and the next two fastest advance to the final.
The unusual event began at the 2017 IAAF World Relays, then added to the World Championship programme at the 2019 World Athletics Championships, but many of the competing nations are yet to get a grip of the rules guiding this format.
Such it was that United States finished fastest in heat one but they were later disqualified for exchanging the baton outside the changeover zone, while Dominican Republic were also axed in spite of finishing within qualifying places for the final.
With Nigeria, USA and others now out of the contest, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Poland, Netherlands, Jamaica and Great Britain will compete for the maiden Olympic Games’ mixed-relay gold medal in the final on Saturday.
