17 Niger Delta Games Athletes make World Athletics U-20 Qualifying Times

In an interim technical report of the 2nd Niger Delta Games submitted to World Athletics, the National Sports Commission (NSC) and Athletics Federation of Nigeria(AFN), it emerged that 17 athletes met the qualifying standards for the World Junior U-20 Championship taking place in the United States of America.

This has been confirmed by Enefiok Udo-Obong, the Games Technical Director, who disclosed that the 17 athletes included four boys and 13.

The detailed report had the World Athletics qualifying standards, names of the athletes and their time for track athletes and distance/ height for field athletes.

Notably among them is the 100 meters which has a qualifying time of 10.50 seconds with two sprinters making the mark.

Chibueze Osama and Godswill Sunday, both of Delta State ran faster times of 10.42 and 10.44 seconds respectively.

While the standard qualifying time for the 200 meters is 21.25 seconds, Bright Gift from Akwa Ibom returned a faster time of 21.25 seconds.

Oseiwe Salami Ahusimenre of Edo State returned a time of 51.75 seconds to meet the 55 seconds benchmark for the men’s 400 meters hurdles.

Four girls made the qualifying time of 11.78 seconds in the women 100 meter sprints. They are Ejiro Peter of Delta State (11.58 seconds), Edo State’s Tejiri Ugoh PRAISE (11.76), Azeez Zainab of Ondo State (11.73) and Victory Imoisemen Azobudi of Edo(11.78).

In the girls 200 meters, Ejiro Peter(23.66), Tejiri Ugoh PRAISE (23.75) and Delta State’s Faith Chukwuma (24.02) all made it faster that the world standards 24.35 seconds.

There was also a high return of qualifiers in the girls 400 meters category with five athletes beating the world standard 55.20 seconds.

Those who breasted the tape below the time are Delta State Okereke Treasure (52.50), Jacinter Andrew of Akwa Ibom (53.83), Siviana Ossai of Delta (53.85), Odot Udo of Akwa Ibom (54.49), Iyanuoluwa Aderemi of Ondo (54.95) and Faith Ezechukwu of Bayelsa (55.19)

Mary Innocent of Delta State ran a time of 59.87 seconds to beat the world standard’s 1:00.75 seconds for the girls 400 meters hurdles.

The last qualifier was in the long jump where Favour Olise of Delta State leapt to a height of 6.33 meters, well over the world benchmark of 6.22 meters

According to Udo-Obong, who is Technical Advisor to the Royal Saudi Arabia Athletics, the Niger Delta Games has provided Nigeria athletics a pool of athletes to enter for the World Junior U-20 Championship.

“The Niger Delta Games is an event in the calendar of World Athletics and this means that performances at the Games are official and rates as a qualifying platform for the global meet.

“It is now left to the authorities in Nigeria to decide if the country will be participating, and if yes, there is no reason these athletes can’t be entered”, the Sydney Olympics 400 meters relay gold medalist stated.

The games was endorsed by the NSC whose Chairman, Mallam Shehu Dikko, represented the President at the opening ceremony of the inaugural edition last year.