Nigeria’s 4x400m men on Saturday qualified for the 2026 World Relays Championships, following their first place finish at the qualifiers in Gaborone, Botswana, Sports247 reports.
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The ticket was picked by the quartet of Sikiru Adeyemi, Nathaniel Samson, Victor Samson and Emmanuel Ojeli, who ran a time of 3.02.98 at the Lefika International Relays to meet the global championship’s qualification mark.
Their achievement came almost an hour after the mixed 4x100m team took one step closer to the global meet by also placing first in Gaborone on Saturday.
Nigeria’s quartet of Chidera Ezeakor, Maria Thompson, James Taiwo and Jennifer Obi on Saturday afternoon won the 4x100m mixed relay event with a time of 41.45 secs.
The winning time makes Nigeria now ranked 12th out of 25 on the global scale and good enough for qualification to this year’s World Relays Championships.
Both victories marked two major steps forward in Nigeria’s ambition of picking six slots at the World Relays scheduled for the same venue in May.
They came barely 24 hours after the president of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Chief Tonobok Okowa vowed that the contingent will be all out to qualify ‘as many teams a possible’ for the championships.
Okowa made the pledge when he joined the team of 15 athletes and three officials in Gaborone and urged all athletes representing the country to justify President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s commitment towards sports matters.
Chairman of the AFN’s media committee, Maxwell Kumoye disclosed in a press statement that Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m and the women’s 4x400m relay teams have already qualified for the World Relays Championships.
Both victories on Saturday took Nigeria’s slots to four, with expectations of two more to come later in the day.
