Three Nigerian relay teams will resume their quest to qualify for the forthcoming IAAF World Championships in Doha, when the Cameroon CAA Grand Prix gets underway in Yaounde on Saturday, July 20th.
The relay teams, which arrived Cameroon on Thursday via an Air Cote d’Ivoire flight, comprises the men’s 4x100m and men’s and women’s 4x400m teams.
Enoch Adegoke, Alaba Akintola, Emmanuel Arowolo and Thankgod Igube will race in the 4x100m where they will square off with Botswana and the host country’s A and B teams.
The highly experienced Patience Okon-George will lead Favour Ofili, Blessing Ovwighoadjebre and Abike Egbeniyi in the women’s 4x400m against Cameroon, while it will be a similar story in the men’s 4x400m where Nigeria will be represented by the quartet of Orukpe Eraiyokan, Sikiru Adeyemi, Shedrack Akpeki and Emmanuel Ojeli, who will be making his international debut for the country.
The first 10 of the 16 World Championships slots for each relay event were secured by the Top 10 performers at the 2019 IAAF World Relays held in Yokohama in April. As such, only six slots are up for grabs before the qualification window closes on September 6th.
The last time Nigeria presented four relay teams at the World Championships was at the 11th edition held in Japan in 2007. It was also the last time a men’s 4x100m team competed at the biennial championships, with Obinna Metu, Uche Isaac, Chinedu Oriala and Olusoji Fasuba representing Nigeria at the time.
The 2013 World Championships in Moscow was the last time a men’s 4x400m team was presented, while the only relay team that was in action at the last World Championships in London was the women’s 4x400m, as the quartet of Okon-George, Yinka Ajayi, Egbeniyi and Glory Nathaniel settled for 5th in 3:26.72.
