Nigeria’s 7th Relay Medal, the men’s 4x400m GOLD medal at Sydney 2000, easily qualifies as Nigeria’s greatest Relay medal, not only because it is the only GOLD medal of the lot, but also for the manner in which it was won, with Enefiok Udo-Obong overhauling the Jamaicans and Bahamians in the finals metres of the race! Being Nigeria’s ONLY Olympic Gold medal on Track, this should have been one of our greatest Olympic moments, but the opportunity to hear Nigeria’s national anthem at Sydney 2000 was denied by an American team who initially took the Gold, but were later stripped of it after one of their athletes, Antonio Pettigrew (RIP), eventually admitted in 2008 to taking performance enhancing drugs during that period. It took another 4 years for the Nigerian Quartet to be officially awarded the GOLD in 2012.
The Golden Quartet were Clement Chukwu, Jude Monye, Sunday Bada (RIP) and Enefiok Udo-Obong. Such was Nigeria’s strength in depth in the Quarter-Mile at that time, that we also had Nduka Awazie and Fidelis Gadzama who ran in the heats at Sydney 2000 and hence also picked up GOLD medals! We pick up the final race from the 3rd leg, with the legendary Sunday Bada collecting the baton down in 4th place: The commentator doesn’t even give Nigeria a mention until the last 150 metres!
Enefiok Udo-Obong tells the story of his epic anchor leg run in the upcoming documentary film, Making of Champions: “The History”. What did he have to say about the greatest moment of his career? See for yourself, here’s a snippet from the film!
The World Relays is a new annual competition (the 1st edition being held in The Bahamas on May 24th/25th), where the world’s best Track & Field nations will compete over 10 different events – 4x100m, 4x200m, 4x400m, 4x800m & 4x1500m (both men and women). There is a total prize fund of $1.4 million up for grabs, and for the 4x100m & 4x400m, the 2014 World Relays will serve as the qualifiers for the 2015 World Championships (as will the 2015 World Relays for the 2016 Olympics). For viewers in Nigeria and Africa, the World Relays will show LIVE on SuperSports on May 24th/25th – more details soon!
