African Athletics Championships: Iredia wins Nigeria’s first long jump medal in 14 years!

Goodness Iredia has won Nigeria’s first men’s long jump medal in 14 years at the African Athletics Championships after leaping to 7.75m finish in the final at the 23rd edition of the Championships in Douala, Cameroon.

The Nigerian’s mark was just 3 centimetres short of the 7.78m jump by South Africa’s Lionel Coetzee who won the gold medal.

Emmanuel Njoku, his compatriot, finished fourth in the event with a 7.72m jump.

Iredia’s medal is the first won by a Nigerian man since 2010 when Stanley Gbagbeke also won a bronze medal in Nairobi, Kenya.

This is an event Nigeria dominated in the early years of the Championships, winning eight of the first nine editions with a clean sweep of the medals in the inaugural edition in 1979 (Ajayi Agbebaku, Kayode Elegbede and Joseph Kio) and 1984 (Paul Emordi, Yusuf Alli and Joseph Kio).

Emordi (1984 and 1985), Alli (1988 and 1989) and Ayodele Aladefa ( 1990 and 1992) won it twice each with Obinna Eregbu the last Nigerian winner in 1993.

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