Nigeria made history at the ongoing World U-20 Athletics Championship by winning the track and field youth competition’s first ever mixed relay team event’s gold medal, megasportsarena.com reports.
Just as it was at the recent Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, the mixed relays debuted at the World Juniors in Nairobi, Kenya and it was Nigeria’s 4x400m mixed relay team that won the gold medal in a new championship record time of 3:19.70.
The quartet of Johnson Nnamani, Imaobong Nse Uko, Opeyemi Oke and Bamidele Ajayi beat off pressure from Poland (3:19.80) and India (3:20.60) to record a better time than the initial best they set in the semi-finals.
The team made one change to the quartet that ran a then championship record of 3:21.66 in the semi-final by lining out 17-year-old Uko, the fastest girl in the 400 metres heading into the championships, and she handed over the baton to third leg runner, Oke in first position.
Uko has also qualified for the individual 400m final scheduled for Saturday and currently stands as the favourite to restore Nigeria as World Athletics U20 Championships 400m champions since Bisi Afolabi succeeded Fatimah Yusuf as queen of the quartermile in 1994 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Similarly, the duo of Godson Oghenebrume and Praise Ofokwu qualified for the 100m men and women’s final, while Chinecherem Nnamdi threw a massive new personal best and Nigeria U20 record of 78.03 meters in the men’s javelin throw to qualify for the final.
The 19 year old 2019 African Games bronze medal winner added almost 5cm to his previous best of 73.24m to jump to the queue as one of the favourites for the gold medal, while Oghenebrume ran 10.22 seconds to win his semi-final heat and Ofoku was also first in her segment with 11.57.
Chinecherem could make history when the final is held on Friday, ahead of which sports minister, Dare Sunday praised the country’s 4x400m mixed relay team for their historic feat in Nairobi.
After seeing the quartet get Nigeria’s first medal in the championship that began on Wednesday, Dare disclosed that he was truly delighted and then advised the athletes to take the victory as a springboard in restoring the country’s past glory.
Dare submitted: “I want to specially congratulate our U-20 team for making history in Nairobi. This gold is for all Nigerians.
“This should serve as the perfect start the new board of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria needs to correct the ills of the immediate past and return Nigeria among the major athletics nations in the world.”
