By Anne Azuka
Team Nigeria’s male 4 by 100 meters relay quartet have qualified for next month’s World Athletics Champions in Budapest Hungary after clocking a time of 38.26 seconds to move into the qualification spot for the main event.
The Team which had failed to beat the qualifying time in Benin City early this month as well as in Lagos and Cotonou in Togo had run a time of 38.64 seconds in the heats during the One-Day Awoture Eleyae Warri Relays which held at the Steven Keshi International Stadium in Asaba clocked the qualifying time in the final to pick one of the sixteen spots for the event in Hungary.
Team Nigeria had presented two Teams with the Team A which had Ughelli-born duo of Favour Ashe and Godson Brume as well as Alaba had shown determination as they faced stiff challenges from Nigeria’s Team B as well as Team Benin Republic and Team Gambia and Team Delta relay quartets to pull off the result.
The Team Nigeria Relay quartet are expected to go into training in the coming weeks along other members of Team Nigeria ahead of the World Athletics Championship in Hungary as Nigeria aims to break the jinx in the event after failing to finish among the top three at Oregon, USA, last year.
In his reaction, the President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Mr. Tonobok Okowa commended Team Nigeria 4 by 100 meters quartet for making Nigerians proud, stressing that putting the nation back to where it belonged had been long expected.
Okowa therefore, assured the Team that the Athletics Federation of Nigeria would not relent in its quest to take Nigeria back to the top of African Athletics.
Okowa who is also the Chairman of the Delta State Sports Commission thanked Governor Sheriff Oborevwori for his sustained support for sports development, not only in Delta State but in Nigeria.
He posited that the State’s investments in sports would continue to yield the needed results in the sector as sports remained a major employer of labour as well as a uniting factor.
However, the Convener of the Awoture Eleyae Warri Relays and former President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Chief Solomon Ogba said Team Nigeria’s performance was coming at the time the Nation was beginning to turn to the sports sector for succour.
Ogba stressed that the athletes have again made Nigerians proud for qualifying for the World Athletics Championship Men’s 4 by 100meters relay event.
Favour Ashe, a member of the quartet who spoke on the team’s qualification said the Team was determined to qualify having failed to do so in Benin City and Cotonou, adding that they pulled their strength together to ensure that Nigeria was counted among the top sixteen relay nations at the World Athletics Championship in Budapest, Hungary next month.
