Tony Ubani
3 July 2008
Lagos — Olusoji Fasuba is a truly 60m world champion. He won that title in Valencia, Spain February, this year. It is a title that won him global attention and a hero here in Nigeria.
And yesterday he showed what a great 60m runner he is. At the 60 meter stage, he led the pack of finalists in the Mobil sponsored Nigeria Olympic trials at the National Stadium, Abuja.
He looked powerful. By the 80 meters stage, he was struggling almost at par with Adetoyi Durotoye, the man who beat him at the Abuja Grand Prix last week. By the time they got to the finish line, Obinna Metu was the athlete celebrating his gold and fastest man of the year in Nigeria. It was a keen race that attracted standing ovation and nods from all the athletics buffs around who expressed hope in the athletes they had just seen perform brilliantly.
Metu is a home-based Delta athlete who trained at Ogwashi Uku and perfected his acts at Oghara when coach Taiwo Ariyo joined the Delta team.
He was the star on track. The star on the stand was Solomon Ogba, former sports commissioner in Delta State who is still the man behind the mask in Delta sports and who actually sponsored the team to the event. He engaged Ariyo to coach the Delta State in the last stage of their training and when Metu won yesterday, the two were celebrating and discussing more strategies.
Ariyo is not recognised at home but internationally. He is IAAF certified coach and Head Athletics coach of Cyprus after working in Finland. Metu returned 10.17 seconds while Fasuba ran 10.18 seconds in a race the photo machine helped to determine the winners and avoid controversy. Durotoye ran 10.26 seconds to place third.
Uchenna Emedolu, easily turning a veteran placed fourth and therefore, made the Olympic team. He had worked hard for this and plans to quit after the Beijing Olympics."My N100,000 is gone and I'm happy about it," Solomon
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