• Ashe, Ekevwo out of men’s event
There was no podium finish for Team Nigeria on Day 6 of the ongoing Commonwealth Games in Birmingham as medal hopefuls Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha finished fourth and fifth respectively in the final of the women’s 100m final on Wednesday, The PUNCH reports.
After ending Day 5 of the ongoing Commonwealth Games with gold to take their medal tally at the event to eight, Team Nigeria failed to finish on the podium in any of their events on Day 6.
Chioma Onyekwere made history as the first Nigerian woman to win the Commonwealth Games gold in the Discus Throw after she threw 61.70m in her fourth attempt to take the lead from home girl, Jade Lally, who led from the start of the competition with her opening throw of 57.33m.
Onyekwere’s gold medal feat pushed Team Nigeria back to the Top 10 on the medals table, but there was no big change on Wednesday as they failed to add to their medals tally.
ATHLETICS
Chukwuma and Nwokocha finished behind Elaine Thompson-Herah (Jamaica), Julien Alfred (St Lucia) and Daryll Neita (England), who claimed the gold, silver and bronze medal respectively. Joy Udo-Gabriel, Patience Omovoh and youngster Ella Onojuwvwo all failed to make it to the final.
It was also a bad day in the men’s 100m event as no Nigerian made it to the final.
Godson Brume, Favour Ashe and Raymond Ekevwo all failed to qualify as the team’s chances of winning medals in athletics continued to dwindle.
In the men’s high jump, Mike Edwards finished in sixth position after his three attempts to scale through the 2.22m jump proved unsuccessful.
However, Patience Okon-George qualified for the semi-finals of the women’s 400m event after she ran 52.63s to finish fourth in her heat.
It was, however, good enough to earn her a semi-final place as one of the fastest non-automatic qualifiers.
Samson Nathaniel and Dubem Amene also qualified from Heat 1 of the men’s 400m and will hope to brighten their chances of winning a medal on Thursday (today) when the event continues.
TABLE TENNIS
In table tennis, Esther Oribamise won her first singles game to progress into the main draw after winning her two preliminary games.
Oribamise, who lost in her team event to Singaporean Feng Tianwei in the preliminary round 11-5, 11-9, 11-4, bounced back with a 4-0 victory over Roana Abel from Vanuatu.
She defeated Roana by (11-4, 11-4, 11-4, and 11-2).
Also, Sule Nasiru defeated Canadian Muhammad Mudassar 3-0 in his first match of the men’s table tennis event in the Para category.
BOXING
It was nightmare for Adeyinka Benson after losing in the quarter-finals of the men’s middleweight boxing in the 71-75kg to Scotland’s Sam Hickey.
MEDALS TABLE
Australia continue to lead the medals chart with a total of 122 medals – 45 gold, 38 silver and 39 bronze, while England are second with 38 gold, 37 silver and 27 bronze with a total of 102 medals.
Canada dethroned New Zealand to move third on the log with 16 gold, 20 silver and 20 bronze medals while Scotland also displaced South Africa in the fifth position.
