23rd African Athletics Championships: Nigerian trio seeking historic 400m gold, Championships record
Elo Joseph eager to become seventh Nigerian woman to win full lap title
All eyes will be on the Nigerian trio of Chidi Okezie, Samuel Ogazi and Dubem Nwachukwu in the final of the men’s 400m Sunday at the ongoing 23rd African Athletics Championships in Douala, Cameroon.
The trio will be looking to not only return Nigeria to the event’s podium since 1998 when Clement Chukwu ran a then 44.65 to win the gold, but also attack the 44.23 Championships record set by Botswana’s Isaac Makwala in Marrakech, Morocco in 2014.
Okezie, who returned Nigeria to the African Games podium for the first time in Accra, Ghana in March, some 37 years after Innocent Egbunike won the country’s first gold in the event will be one of the candidates for the title in Douala but he will have to break 45 seconds for the second time in his career and less than two weeks after he ran 44.97 in Edmonton, Canada.
His younger compatriot, Ogazi looks to be the man many feel is in a better position to not only win but also break the championships record after running inside 44.60 three times this year and all within a month!.
This will be the first time since the new millennium that Nigeria will be presenting three men in the final of the 400m and a possible clean sweep of the medals, something unprecedented in the history of the championships cannot be ruled out.
In the women’s final, Elo Joseph will be the lone Nigerian campaigner and will be hoping she can be the seventh Nigerian woman to win the full lap title after Kehinde Vaughan, Airat Bakare, Falilat Ogunkoya (twice), Fatima Yusuf, Omotayo Akinremi and Folasade Abugan.
Joseph finished second behind Kenya’s Mary Moraa at the African Games in March and will feel she can go a step higher at the podium this time around in the absence of the Kenya.
