Nigeria’s only rower at the ongoing Olympic Games, Chierika Ukogu will surely be savoring her record breaking performances in Rio, after becoming the first Nigerian woman in history to qualify for the semifinals of the women’s Single sculls rowing event at the Olympics.
Ukogu competed in quarterfinal 3, rowing in lane 2, to finish 5th in 7:54.44, with the race winner being Denmark’s Fie Udby Erichsen, who clocked 7:33.22, with Zimbabwe’s Micheen Thornycroft finishing runner-up in 7:34.38 while Canada’s Carling Zeeman was 3rd in 7:34.52.
A breakdown of how Ukogu rowed: in the first 500m she clocked 1:52.57 and then went on to 3:51.77 in 1000m, in the next 1500m her time was 5:52.26 which culminated in the 7:54.44 she posted.
Although only the top three in each Heat automatically qualified to semifinals A/B, Ukogu’s time was ranked 18 overall in the quarterfinals, which was enough to book a spot in Semifinal C/D 1.
The US born athlete will hope to get a berth Final A with a much faster time, when she competes tomorrow by 3:30pm (Nigerian Time), against Lithuania’s Lina Saltyte and Sweden’s Anna Malvina Svennung.
