After several fruitless efforts by Nigerian athletes in the track and field events at the on-going 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, female sprint hurdler, Oluwatobiloba Amusan produced a gold medal for the country Friday.
Her superlative performance in the women’s 100m hurdles saw Nigeria catapulted to the 8th position on the overall medals table with eight gold, five silver and five bronze medals. Amusan ran 12.68 seconds to beat two Jamaican athletes, Danielle Williams (12.78 secs) and Yanique Thompson (12.97 secs) to the second and third place respectively.
Earlier Friday, Nigeria grabbed three gold medals, with two coming from wrestling events. Odunayo Adekuoroye retained her Commonwealth crown, even as Blessing Oborududu won her first-ever gold medal in the Games history.
In a keenly contested finale, World silver-medalist, Adekuoroye battled to gold in the 57kg weight class with a 7-5 points win over favourite Pooja Dhanda of India, who beat her in Season 3 of the Indian Pro Wrestling League earlier this year.
With the win, the 24-year-old thus claimed back-to-back gold medals at the Games, following her success in Glasgow, four years ago.Eight-time African champion, Oborududu, came from behind to defeat Canada’s Danielle Lappage 4-3 and claim the gold medal at in the 68kg weight category.
In the men’s event, Amas Daniel failed in his attempt to land a first Commonwealth Games gold, as India’s Bajrang stopped him. The 6-time African champion settled for a bronze medal, beating Canada’s Vincent de Marinis 4-4 (by criteria) in the 65kg weight class.
In the men’s 97kg class, Soso Tamarau narrowly missed out of the bronze medal, losing 2-1 to Alexios Kaouslidis of Cyprus.Team Nigeria picked a fourth gold medal yesterday in the Para-sport athletics men’s T47 100m category, where Suwaibidu Galadima finished first in 11.04 seconds ahead of England’s James Arnott (11.30 secs) and Tevanghn Thomas (11.63 secs).
