Following the expiration of the qualification period, the World Athletics (WA) has confirmed Nigeria’s women 4X100m and 4X400m mixed relay teams for the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The 4X100m women team led by Blessing Okagbare secured their spot at the Olympic National Trial held at Yabatech on June 19 with a time of 42.97secs to place 15th among the 16 teams listed by the world body for Tokyo showpiece.
However, Nigeria was missing in the 4X400m women’s line-up for Tokyo listed by WA.
Nigeria’s women 4x400m relay team that ran 3:26.84 at the Lagos Open Athletics Championship in Lagos was not considered as the 3:30.32 ran at the 2019 African Games placed the country in 20th place in the ranking.
However, the 4X400m mixed relay team placed 16th to be listed for Tokyo. The team made up of Imaobong Nse Uko, Nathaniel Samson, Patience Okon-George and Chidi Okezie ran a strong race, storming past the entire field to prevail in a new National Record (NR) of 3:14.09 at the Paga/MOC Relays at Yabatech to secure their place in Tokyo.
According to WA, 1900 athletes from more than 190 countries will compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games when the athletics programme begins on July 30.
The Olympic qualification period for all stadium events finished on June 29 and World Athletics’ Olympic qualification system has now been finalised, showing that about 70 per cent of the athletes in individual events have qualified by entry standard and 30 per cent by world ranking position, while 100 universality places have been awarded.
