Team Nigeria’s Uhunoma Osazuwa and Miles Ukaoma were in action on Day 1 of the 2015 IAAF World Championships, competing in the Hepthatlon and 400m Hurdles respectively at the Bird’s Nest Stadium on Saturday.
It was indeed a very busy day for Osazuwa, Nigeria’s Record Holder in the event who came to the championships brimming with confidence after setting the National Record (NR) and PB of 6106 points to win the Nigerian Trials in Warri last month. She competed in four events on Saturday, finishing 8th in Heat 3 of the 100m Hurdles with a time of 13.75s, and then 9th in the High Jump (1.83m).
She thereafter participated in the Shot put where she came 15th in Group B with a distance of 11.79m, and then finished with the 200m where she was 5th in her heat with 24.36s. She ended the day in 22nd position overall out of the 33 athletes that showed up for the competition.
Osazuwa will continue her Beijing participation with the Long Jump, Javelin Throw and 800m on Sunday to end what must have been a challenging but exciting debut no doubt. The multi-talented athlete also represented Nigeria at the London 2012 Olympics, after which she stayed off action for two years in order to complete her degree programme. She will be looking forward to making it to the Rio Olympics next year.
Ukaoma on the other hand, started his World Championships participation in Lane 9 of Heat 3, which had the likes of USA’s Kerron Clement and European champion, Kariem Hussein. The 2014 NCAA champion who ran a Championship Record (CR) and PB of 48.84s only last month, swiftly took off from the blocks in a bid to make it to the next round of the competition. Only the first four athletes from each heat, as well as the four fastest losers overall, qualify for the semis.
Unfortunately, Ukaoma was not able to sail through to the next round as he narrowly lost out after finishing 5th in 49.38s. In fact, Belgium’s Michaël Bultheel (Heat 5) who clocked the same time as Ukaoma, secured the final qualification slot, thus bringing an end to the hurdler’s outing in Beijing. The Nigerian may take solace in the fact that he ran faster than defending champion, Jehue Gordon (49.91s) and the fastest man in 2015, Bershawn Jackson (50.14s) who both finished 7th in their respective heats.
Six Africans qualified for Sunday’s semis and topping the list is the Kenyan Record holder in the event, Nicholas Bett who returned a time of 48.39s to win the first heat. It was also the fastest time run in the heats overall. He inspired compatriot, Boniface Mucheru Tumuti (48.79s) to do same in Heat 2 to finish ahead of USA’s Michael Tinsley. Other Africans who made it to the semis include South Africa’s LJ Van Zyl (49.12s), Kurt Couto of Mozambique (49.15s), Algeria’s Abdelmalik Lahoulou (49.33s) and Kenya’s Haron Koech (49.38s).
