Road to Budapest 2023: Algeria pushes Team Nigeria men’s 4x400m relay team to 19th
The Algerian men’s 4x400m relay team ran 3:02.84 at the Complexe Olympique Mohamed Boudiaf in Algiers on Friday to move to 18th in the qualification ranking
for next month’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
The north Africans are now ahead of Nigeria in the race for qualifcation for the 4x400m relay event after the Nigerians ran their best race in over a decade
(3:02.91) to raise hopes of making the championships for the first time since 2013.
The quartet of Noah Akwu, Abiola Onakoya, Tobi Ogunmola and Isah Salihu ran 3:04.52 but it was not enough to get the team into the final of the World
Championships in Moscow, Russia in 2013.
The last time the Nigerian men’s 4x400m relay team ran in the final of the biennial championships was in 2009 in Berlin, Germany where the
team of Saul Welgopwa, Noah Akwu, Amaechi Morton and Bola Lawal ran 3:02.73 to place eighth.
Team Nigeria is among the countries fighting for eight qualification slots after the eight that ran in the final of the event in Oregon, USA last year got
automatication qualification for Budapest 2023.
The Nigerians look to have only Kenya (3:02.02, 14th), Barbados (3:02.12, 15th) and the Dominican Republic (3:02.19, 16th) in their sight and will first have
to run faster than the Dominican Republic to stand a chance of qualifying.
Sportsnow learnt from close sources in the Athletics Federation of Nigeria that the federation is thinking about inviting at least two countries within the west African sub-region to compete at the Lagos Athletics Club Series final which holds on Friday in Lagos where they will seek to attempt to run faster than they did in Lome, Togo at the weekend.
The men’s 4x100m and 4x400m as well as the women’s 4x400m relay teams failed in their attempt to secure slots at the World Championships in Budapest.
