Sports
AAG: Nigeria Sustains Dominance in Women Sprints …Moves To 2nd Position
Nigeria underlined her dominance of African women sprints on Monday in Maputo, Mozambique as three of her athletes swept the medals in the 100 metres at the 10th All-Africa Games.
Tidesports gathered that the trio of Damola Osayemi, Blessing Okagbare and Gloria Asume clinched the medals at stake to restate the country’s position in the event.
Osayemi ran the race in 10.9 seconds to win the gold medal, and dethroned her compatriot and African champion, Okagbare.
The U.S.-based Okagbare followed closely with a time of 11.01 seconds for the silver, while Asume took the bronze with a time of 11.26 seconds.
The men’s 100 metres race, however, had Amr Seoud of Egypt winning the gold in 10.2 seconds while Ben Youssef of Cote d’Ivoire finished second with a time of 10.28 seconds.
Nigeria’s Obinna Metu was right behind him to take the bronze medal with 10.29 seconds.
Doreen Amata of Nigeria also won gold in high jump after leaping over 1.88 metres, while her compatriot Agnes Osasuwa took the silver with a jump of 1.80 metres.
Nigeria’s Tosin Oke also won gold in the triple jump with a distance of 16.65 metres.
In the 110 metres hurdles, Nigeria’s Samuel Okon and Salim Nurudeen also won the silver and bronze medals respectively while Algeria’s Hadji Lasib took the gold.
Meanwhile, journalists covering the 10th All Africa Games here in Maputo have not been having it easy as organisers continue to demonstrate a very high level of incompetence.
From discrepancies in results of events to the non-release of daily medal table, the confusion makes it almost impossible for journalists to have a good picture of the performances of various contingents.
This has made some adventurous news reporters to send home unauthenticated medal tables, based on conjectures.
Till the time of filing in this report, the final result of the men’s100 meters final was still shrouded in controversy as two results emerged yesterday after the race. While the first version had Egypt’s Amir Ibrahim winning the gold, Nigeria’s Oghene Egwero and compatriot Obinna Metu in second and third positions respectively, the latest result reconfirmed Egypt’s Amir Ibrahin Seoud gold medal with a time of 10.20 secs and the silver medal to Ben Yusuf of Ivory Coast (10.28 secs) while Obinna Metu(10.29 secs) retained the bronze.
It could be recalled that Nigeria’s Iworima Otonye, competing in the Women’s Tripple Jump event, had her gold medal nullified after the Confederation of African Athletics had faulted the conduct of the event by “incompetent technical officials.” A faulty jump was said to have earned her the gold and the medal was withdrawn when other countries protested. Nigeria appealed and got a judgment ordering a repeat of the final event.
However, Track and Field has lifted Nigeria to the second position, at the conclusion of events last night. Athletics had garnered up to 7 gold medals. Nigeria won the 4X100m relay in the men and women events shortly after Seun Adigun won the 100m Hurdles.
“It is good that Track and Field is doing well but I know that we could have done better,” Athletics
Federation boss, Solomon Ogba said. The quartet of Agnes Osazuwa, Gloria Asumo, Demola Osayemi and Blessing Okagbare won gold for Nigeria in the 4×100 meters relay. They dusted their opponents in a time of 43 secs to bag gold.
Nigeria’s impressive showing in athletics continued with yet another gold medal in the men’s 4×100 relay as the quartet of Benjamin Adukwu, Peter Emelieze, Obinna Metu won the gold. Gloria Deborah also won gold in the partially sighted 200 meters event.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor