Nigeria provisionally secures women’s 4x400m relay ticket to Paris Olympics
The Nigerian women’s 4x400m relay team will be one of the 16 teams that will file out on August 9, 2024 for the first round of the event at the Olympics Games in Paris, France if the qualification window is closed today.
The team failed to compete at the World Athletics Relays which ended last weekend in Nassau, Bahamas due to administrative incompetence on the part of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria.
There is however good news as the team currently occupies the last qualification spot for the Games courtesy of the 3:27.29 Omolara Ogunmakinju inspired the quartet to run at the African Gamea in Accra, Ghana in March to win the gold medal.
What the team needs to do now is to defend that spot by running in two or more competitions approved by World Athletics to improve on the time that has put them, provisionally though, on the train to Paris.
There is no denying the fact that the team could have easily wrapped up automatic qualification for the Games if they had presented a team at the World Athletics Relays as three of the teams did not even break 3:28 while five in total had times lower than what the Nigerinas ran in Accra.
Some of the countries that will try to upstage Cuba and Nigeria who hold the two remaining tickets as at today are Bahrain complete with two world class Nigerian runners in Kemi Adekoya and Salwa Eid Nasser and Germany.
Ohers are the Dominican Republic who will be banking on Marileidy Paulino, the reigning World 400m champion for a miracle; Kenya who can call on Mary Moraa, the World 800m champion who ran 50.57 to win the African Games 400m title and Botswana.
