Team Nigeria made a positive statement with Tuesday's performances
Team Nigeria made a blistering start in the athletics event of the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday with all of the six athletes in action qualifying for the semi-final of the 100m event.
Competing in the men's 100m event, the trio to Favour Oghene Tejiri Ashe, Raymond Ekevwo and Godson Oghenebrume all breezed into semi-final at the Alexandria Stadium in Birmingham on Tuesday.
While Ashe and Ekevwo finished among the top 10 from the heats in times of 10.12s and 10.14s to get automatic qualification spots, Oghenebrume had to wait with his time of 10.36s to get passing as one of the non-automatic qualifiers.
Ashe who is reigning Nigeria's fastest man won his heat, beating the likes of Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake.
For Oghenebrume, he was intially disqualified for a false start but later reinstated which somewhat affected his concentration as he finished third in the sixth heat.
In the women's race, it was also a similar development with two of the Nigerian runners, Grace Nwokocha and Rose Chukwuma, finishing tops in their respective races.
Joy Udo-Gabriel, despite being drafted as a late replacement for Favour Ofili, finished third in her race to pull through to the semifinal.
The semi-final heats are billed for Wednesday.
Earlier today, Nigeria's Anabel Orobosa qualified for the final of women's Shot Put event.
Orobosa who is the reigning national champion finished 5th in Group B of the qualification rounds, throwing a mark of 16.27m to secure a spot in the final.
Meanwhile, Team Nigeria has secured its fifth medal at Commonwealth Games.
At the National Exhibition Centre on Tuesday, 19-year-old weightlifter Taiwo Liadi, won a silver medal.
She competed in the women's 76kg weightlifting event, and finished second behind Canada's Maya Laylor, who set a new Commonwealth Games record with a lift of 128kg.
Laidi on her part set a Junior Commonwealth Games Record, lifting a combined total weight of 216kg to clinch Silver in the women's 76kg event.
Nigeria now has five medals altogether -- two gold, one silver and two bronze medals -- and all of them have come from weightlifting.
Adijat Olarinoye and Rafiat Lawal claimed the two gold medals in the women's 55kg and 59kg categories respectively and set new Commonwealth Games records.
Olarinoye set a new Games record with a lift of 203kg - 92kg in Snatch and 111 in Clean and Jerk while Lawal clinched gold with a total lift of 206kg - 110kg in Snatch and 116kg in Clean and Jerk - to win the women's 59kg weightlifting event.
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Later on Tuesday, Mary Osijo will compete in the women's 87kg being the last competitor for Nigeria in the weightlifting event.
Nigeria currently sits in 9th position on the medals table.
Australia with 71 medals are dictating the pace, followed by England with 56. New Zealand completes the top three with 24 medals. South Africa is currently the best performing African nation at the games with 12 medals.
It hasn't been all sweet for Nigeria as the Tables Tennis team led by Aruna Quadri lost to Host England in third place match for the Team event.
In the men's 67kg-71kg Light Middleweight category, Team Nigeria's Abdul-Afeez Osoba lost his Round of 16 bout against Garan Croft.
The Welsh boxer defeated his Nigerian counterpart 5-0 (on points) to advance to the quarter finals.
