Team Nigeria in the early hours of yesterday grabbed two tickets on day one of the World Relays, which began in Bahamas on Saturday.
The World Relays is the qualification tournament for the men, women and mixed relays for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Team Nigeria began the competition on a good note with the mixed 4×400 metres relay team finishing second in their group to automatically qualify for the Games.
Inspired by reigning African Games 400m champion, Chidi Okezie, the 4x400m men’s team also booked their tickets.
Okezie ran an incredible 44.78 split leg (third) to ensure the team grabbed the second automatic ticket behind USA in the 4x400m mixed relay.
The quartet of Samuel Ogazi, Ella Onojuvwevwo, who also ran a 50.45 split leg (second), Okezie and Elo Joseph ran 3:13.79 to come second behind the U.S., who ran a new 3:11.52 Championships record to win the heat.
Barely two hours later, Okezie returned once again to ensure a second Paris Olympics ticket was in the bag on the first day of competition.
The USA-based 30-year-old ran an incredible 44.46 split leg to anchor the team to Paris. The quartet, also comprising Dubem Nwachukwu, Dubem Amene, who also ran a 44.82 split leg (second) and Sikiru Adeyemi ran 3:01.70 personal season’s best to come second behind Belgium in the heat.
While the mixed relay team will be making an immediate return to the Olympics after appearing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the men’s 4x400m team will be competing for the first time since 2004 when the quartet of James Godday, Musa Audu, Saul Weigopwa and Enefiok Udo-Obong ran 3:00.90 to win the bronze medal in Athens, Greece, four years after winning gold in Sydney, Australia.
Okezie was expected to lead his team early this morning in the finals of both the 4x400m mixed relay team and the men’s 4x400m team as they fight for the $40,000 top prize money on offer.
Nigeria could not present a team in the women’s 4x400m following the injury suffered by Omolara Ogunmakinju on the eve of the competition. Her absence meant that only three ladies were available for a race that must be prosecuted by four.
The men and women’s 4x100m relay teams had another chance of fighting for places among the 16 teams that will compete for podium appearances at the Olympics when they compete in the repechage early today.
The women’s team led by Favour Ofili will run in the third heat of the repechage round with host, Bahamas, China and Brazil for the two automatic tickets on offer.
For the men’s 4x100m, the team, led by UdodiOnwuzurike will hope to finish among the top two in the second heat, which has Ghana, Turkey, Netherlands, France and South Korea among other countries.
