Nigerian wrestler, Blessing Oborududu, settled for Silver in the Olympics after losing her final fight against United States’ Tamyra Stock-Mensah, 4-1, in the women’s wrestling 68kg. Oborududu brought Nigeria’s medal haul in Tokyo to two and made history as the first Nigerian wrestler to win an Olympic medal.
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Things were not rosy for Odunayo Adekuoruoye in wrestling 57kg as despite leading Moldova’s Anastasia Nichita 8-2, she lost the fight by fall. Nigeria’s sole male representative in wrestling, Ekerekeme Agiomor, lost to India’s Deepak Punia by superiority, 1-12, in the first bout of the quarterfinals of men’s freestyle 86kg.
Team Nigeria was handed hope of another medal in Tokyo after Shot Put specialist, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, qualified for the final of the event with a 21.16m mark to place 4th and advance into the final with one of the non-automatic tickets.
After the disappointment of being disqualified in his previous outing, Divine Oduduru filed out again in the heat 1 of men’s 200m. An unlucky Oduduru narrowly missed out on a place in the final with just 0.06s behind Jereem Richards.
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In water sports, Nigeria’s first-ever canoeist in an Olympic, Ayomide Bello, finished 3rd in the heat 3 of the Women’s Canoe Single 200m to miss out on an automatic semi-final spot. She would go again in the quarter-final in quest of one of the two available non-automatic semi-final slots but missed out despite recording a faster time of 47.326s.
Nigerian medal-winning athletes in Tokyo, Ese Brume (Bronze, Long Jump), and Blessing Oborududu (68kg, Wrestling), have been rewarded with cash prizes of $7,500 (Bronze) and $10,000 (Silver), by the Nigerian Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday Dare. Hopefully, the reward will motivate other Nigerian athletes still competing to go for the win.
Sources:
Instagram @makingofchamps
Instagram@nigeriaolympic
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