Nigeria: The Highs and Lows of Asaba 2018

4 August 2018

"I think this is my first and last time to come to Nigeria to compete!" These words went viral on Monday, July 30th, because they came from the fastest woman in the world in 2018, Cote d'Ivoire's Marie Josee Ta Lou, who had taken to her social media accounts to vent about her team's long stop-over in Lagos after it took several hours for the Ivoirian team to get connecting flights to Asaba for the 21st edition of the African Championships.

Ta Lou is one of the biggest names at the ongoing championships and was favoured to win the women's 100m title, a feat she easily accomplished on Thursday with a time of 11.15s. Considering that her teammate and defending champion Murielle Ahoure had to withdraw from the competition a few days before its commencement due to an illness, it would have been a travesty for Ta Lou to miss the competition because of the hitches she had to overcome to get to the championships, because it was reported that the Ivoirian team wanted to return home when it was getting too long to get connecting flights to Asaba.

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