Ben Efe
5 May 2008
Lagos — The African Athletics Championships that were concluded in Ethiopia yesterday have revealed one thing to Nigeria: Even as they are excelling in some areas, other countries are catching up on them and even surpassing them in their strong areas in sports and that they need to double their efforts to attain great heights that won them glory before now.
In Ethiopia, the country's athletes succumbed in the crucial relay races to relinquish the top spot to South Africa.
South Africa topped the overall medals' table with 12 gold, two silver, and eight bronze, while Nigeria had seven gold, seven silver and five bronze. Ethiopia and Kenya finished third and fourthrespectively
The outcome of Nigeria's performance was two gold medals short of their achievement at the 2007 All Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria where they topped the athletics medals table as they did in the past.
Amazingly, the men's 4x100m featuring Deji Aliu, Uchenna Emedolu, Obinna Metu and Durotoye Adetuyi did not finish as they dropped their baton. The men's 4x400m also could not find their bearing, but the women teams got their acts right in the 4x100m and 4x400m.
Damola Osayomi who could not repeat her Algiers 2007 double, led the quartet including Endurance Ojokolo, Gloria Kemesode and Susan Akene to gold in the 4x100m.
While Folashade Abughan, after grabbing silver in the flat with a season best 50.89seconds, did a marvelous job in the second leg, after Aluoma Nwoke started. Endurance Abinuwa and Joy Eze completed the gold run at the time of 3.30.07.seconds
Other performances include Ajoke Odumosu who made up for her poor run last year in Algiers. She did 55.92 seconds in the women 400m hurdles. But in the women high jump, Dorren Amata did not make any showing due to injury, Nneka Ukuh placed fourth with 1.75m in the event won by South Africa's Annika Smith with a jump of 1.88m.
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