Nigeria continues to cement its dominance in Africa at the ongoing Rio 2016 Paralympic Games after Flora Ugwunwa and Josephine Orji increased the country’s gold medal hauls to eight with their record breaking feat in the Women’s Powerlifting and Javelin Throw – F53/54.
With a throw of 20.25m, Ugwunwa set a new world record to beat Tunisia’s Hania Aidi and South Africa’s Ntombizanele Situ to second and third places respectively.
With the African trio dominating the event, Nigeria’s Ugwunwa picked the best medal to improve Nigeria’s gold medal haul to seven and two silver and a bronze medals to confine Tunisia to second place in Africa.
Josephine Orji who competed in the women’s +86kg set a new world record after lifting 154kg to pick Nigeria’s eight gold medal ahead of athletes from Poland and Netherlands.
In the overall medal table, Nigeria has been pushed to 10th place from 9th by New Zealand, while Tunisia places 15 to become the second best African team with five gold, five silver and three bronze medals.
Nigeria’s male table tennis team caused an upset in the first round of the team event after the duo of Ahmed Koleosho and Nick Emmanuel defeated Polish pair of Rafal Lis and Krzyszt Zylka.
To overcome the European, it was Emmanuel that inspired the two-man team after the Nigerians won the doubles tie 3-0, Koleosho fell to Rafal Lis 3-1 and Emmanuel was rootless against Zylka when he claimed an emphatic 3-1 to give Nigeria a 2-1 win. The Nigerians are expected to battle against Turkey in the quarterfinal tie.
An elated President of Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Wahid Oshodi lauded the players for the epic victory, which he described as commendable despite being debutants at the competition.