Making of Champions (MoC) athlete Joy Udo-Gabriel has been named on the team that is set to represent Nigeria at the 2018 Commonwealth Games taking place in Gold Coast, Australia, from April 4th to 15th.
The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) on Thursday, released its list of 37 athletes slated to compete in Track and Field at the quadrennial competition, and Udo-Gabriel, who finished 3rd in the women’s 100m final at last week’s Commonwealth Games Trials in Abuja, made the cut, and is now MoC’s first ever athlete to make the National team.
While competing at the Trials, which was used to select the Athletics team for the Games, the 18-year old raced to 3rd place in the heats where she clocked a time of 11.83s, then lowered her time to 11.65s in the semis, equalling her Personal Best (PB) set last year.
Udo-Gabriel who was crowned the fastest school girl in Lagos State in 2015, had to dig deep in the final to storm to a 3rd place finish (11.70s) behind Isoken Igbinosun and Rosemary Chukwuma who clocked times of 11.55s and 11.58s respectively. She thereafter ran an impressive first leg for MoC in the women’s 4x100m relay where the team finished 3rd.
The double Silver medallist at the 2017 AFN/MoC U-20 Championships, commenced her 2018 campaign at the AFN Golden League in Kaduna last December where she competed in the 200m, finishing 3rd in her heat behind Igbinosun and Chukwuma.
Udo-Gabriel competed in the 100m for the first time this season at the Port Harcourt Golden League which was held last month, racing to victory in her heat, and then placing 2nd in the women’s ‘A’ Final as Mercy Ntia-Obong won the race.
She also ran in the 200m where she finished 2nd to Praise Idamadudu in the heats but didn’t compete in the final. Speaking after her race at the Port Harcourt Golden League, Udo-Gabriel had disclosed that it would be a dream come true for her to represent Nigeria at the Commonwealth Games:
“I just have to make the team; that’s going to be my first international competition. Imagine I just make it, I will be so happy, and I’m going to give it my best because it is my first international competition. I wouldn’t want to disappoint Nigerians, so I would just put in my best”, she said.
