Sports
PRESTINA Ochonogor on Tuesday in Lima, Peru gave Team Nigeria a bright start to the 2024 World Athletics Under-20 Championships by qualifying for the women’s long jump event final.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ochonogor recorded a jump of 6.28 metres to finish second in the event’s Qualification Group A on the championships’ opening day.
Her jump in the group of 13 jumpers was impressive enough to place her second overall in the opening round which had a total of 25 jumpers.
The final is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the same venue, with the 18-year-old Nigerian who has a season and personal best 6.79m looking good enough for a medal.
In the 4x400m mixed relay event, Team Nigeria could not advance to the final after failing to make the qualification cut in the Peruvian capital city.
The quartet of Oseiwe Salami, Odot Udo, Gafari Badmus and Favour Onyah did run a season best three minutes 25.59 seconds to finish third in heat 2.
But they finished behind the two automatic qualifiers in the heat, while their time was not good enough to earn them one of the fastest losers’ tickets for the three heats.
However, Justina Eyakpobeyan qualified for the women’s 100m final after placing second in the semi-finals’ heat 2 with a time of 11.56 seconds.
It was an improvement on her time of 11.61 seconds earlier in the day.
This had placed her third in heat 2 of the opening round, which still helped her to advance to the semi-finals.
Teammate Chioma Nweke on her part had crashed out in the opening round when she finished sixth in heat 4 with a time of 12.24 secs.
Team Nigeria were worse in the men’s 100m, with Chidera Ezeakor finishing seventh in heat 2 with a time of 10.92 secs.
The competition continues on Wednesday, and will end on Saturday.(NAN)
A.I
Aug. 28, 2024
Tags: Chioma Nweke Gafari Badmus Odot Udo Oseiwe Salami Prestina Ochonogor
