Nigeria’s quartet of Chidera Ezeakor, Maria Thompson, James Taiwo and Jennifer Obi on Saturday afternoon won the 4x100m mixed relay event at the ongoing Lefika International Relays in Gaborone, Botswana with a time of 41.45 secs.
Sports247 gathered that 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.
It also marked a major step forward in Nigeria’s ambition of picking six slots at the World Relays scheduled for the same venue in May.
It 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 is competing in four events at the competition – men’s 4x100m and 4x400m as well as mixed 4x100m and 4x400m – with high hopes of securing qualification in all.
Kumoye further pointed out that the country’s women’s 4x100m and the women’s 4x400m relay teams have already qualified for the World Relays Championships, while the mixed 4x100m took Nigeria’s slots to three, but Okowa said he wants three more.
