The medal haul started to rack up for Team Nigeria on Day 6 of the 12th African Games taking place in Morocco with the country winning three medals at the end of the day, all thanks to the exploits of the athletes who competed in Taekwondo while donning the Green and White colors of the nation.
Ruth Chinazum Nwosu won Nigeria’s first GOLD of the games when she defeated Morocco’s Oumaima El Bouchti 26-22 in the women’s 49-53kg.
Also, Nigeria’s duo of Benjamin Okuomose (+87 kg) and Sunday Onofe (80-87kg) both secured Bronze medals in their respective categories. In the women’s 46-49kg preliminary round, Sekinat Aramide Adebayo lost to Ferimata Coulibaly of Ivory Coast by 30-21.
It was a clean sweep of victories for the countries Table Tennis players as they competed in the opening rounds of the event.
Segun Toriola, Jide Omotayo and Bode Abiodun opened their campaign on a good note as they totally outclassed Kenya. Toriola and Omotayo secured a 3-0 victory in the doubles, while Abiodun beat Ndunda Mutua 3-1 in the next game. Omotayo completed the job with a 3-0 win as well.
In the men’s Team Group A Qualification 2, Bode Abiodun and Olajide Omotayo did not drop a match, beating their Madagascar opponents: Razafindralambo Andrianina, Rakotoarisoa, Mamy Rakotoarisoa and Nativel Jonathan 3-0 in their Group A Qualification 2, men’s Team event
Veteran, Funke Oshonaike led Team Nigeria women to a dominant display against the Republic of Congo in their first group match. The six-time Olympian partnered with Fatimo Bello to hand a 3-0 defeat to Sabrina Mazombo and Bokockou Nejdanova in the doubles event.
In Swimming, Nigeria’s Moyosore Ogunbanwo finished 5th with a time of 1:02.16 in the Women’s 100m Freestyle Preliminaries, while in the men’s 100m Freestyle, Phillip Adejumo placed 4th in 52:43 and Yeiyah Naikegy also did not qualify.
Like their male counterparts did yesterday, the Falconets earned a place in the semi-finals of the football event when they forced Cameroon’s U20 side to a 1-1 draw in Al Jadida. The team who have now accumulated four points will swing into preparations for their semi-final game after Zambia’s U20 team-who they were meant to play in their last group game, withdrew from the competition.
In men’s category of the 3×3 Basketball event, Team Nigeria beat DR Congo 21-16 to win their first group game. They followed the win with another 21-10 win against Niger Republic in their second group game, while the female team defeated The Gambia 21-6 also to win their first Group B game.
Lawa Olaiwola lost to Houmri Mohamed of Algeria 5-0 in the Men’s Light heavy (81kg) boxing event, while Arinze Franklin defeated Mapapa Monalis of Democratic Republic of Congo 4-1 in the Men’s Heavy (91kg) preliminaries.
After qualifying for the finals yesterday, Moses Micheal settled for a fifth-place finish in Final A of the LW Men’s Single Sculls 1000m having clocked 3:56.55 in his race, while Toko Esther also placed fifth in Final A of the women’s category having clocked 4:22.06.
In the women’s Single Sculls 1000m final, Glory Abu posted a time of 4:17.10 to place fourth.
Akinrotimi Isreal and Alhassan Shamsudeen placed 17th and 18th respectively in the 30.4km men’s cross country cycling, while Durogbade Adejoke and Odiase Glory were 11th and 12th in the 22.8km women’s cross country cycling race.
Finally, both the men and women Handball team couldn’t make it past the preliminary rounds with the male side losing 30-21 to Angola, while the female side lost 26-20 to hosts Morocco.
