2022 Common Wealth Games: Team Nigeria guns for more medals as athletics commence

Image: BBC

Team Nigeria hopes to increase their four-medal tally at the games as Day 5 commences with athletics.

Currently, Team Nigeria holds the ninth position on the medal table with two gold and two bronze so far.

Weightlifters Adijat Olarinoye and Rafiatu Lawal both won gold in the women’s 55kg and 59kg categories, respectively.

Olarinoye set a new Games record with a lift of 203kg – 92kg in Snatch and 111 in Clean & Jerk. Similarly, Lawal took home gold with a total lift of 206kg – 110kg in Snatch and 116kg in Clean and Jerk – to win the women’s 59kg weightlifting event and setting a new Games record in the process.

In the final of the women’s 76kg weightlifting category, 19-year-old debutant Taiwo Liadi is looking forward to adding another medal to the existing ones in today’s event.

Taiwo Laidi of Nigeria will be competing with Amy Salt (Wales), Maya Laylor (Canada), Punam Yadav (India), Chloe Whylie (Jamaica), Agata Herbert (Scotland), Ebony Gorincu (Australia), Maximina Uepa (Nauru), Jeanne Mboosi (Cameroon), Deborah Alawode (England) and Monira Kazi from Bangladesh.

In judo, Joy Asonye will slug it out with Aoife Coughlan from Australia in the quarter-finals women’s 70kg category.

Also, Fatai Muritala and Cecilia James are fighting for places in the next round.

Muritala, 17, will face England's Lachlan Moorhead in the -81kg elimination round of 16, while James will fight Zambia's Taonga Soko in the women -63kg elimination Round of 16.

Both fights are scheduled to hold at the Coventry Arena.

In boxing, Elizabeth Oshoba, competing in the featherweight 54kg-57kg category, confronts Erin Walsh from New Zealand for a place in the quarter-finals, while in the men’s light middleweight 67kg-71kg, Afeez Osoba fights Wales Garan Croft in the round of 16 at Hall 4 inside the NEC Hall 4.

Osoba had knocked out Carl Hield (Bahamas) in the round of 32.

In athletics, world champion and record breaker Tobi Amusan, among other track and field athletes, will compete in the heat event at Alexander Stadium.

Recall that Amusan made a blistering run of 12.12secs – tearing almost a tenth of a second from the previous world record – in the World Championships’ semi-finals in Oregon. She later finshed the finals with a time of 12.06 taking home the gold.

Recall that Ese Brume took home the silver in the women’s long jump at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

Also Nigeria’s fastest man Favour Ashe will be running as the athletics starts. He holds 9.99 secs a personal best at the national trials held in June in Benin City, Edo.

They have been tipped to finish with medals in Birmingham as top athletes from America and Canada withdrew.

Source: The Punch

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