With three gold medals to her name, Imaobong Nse Uko was Nigeria’s star performer at the just concluded 2021 World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya.
It was Nigeria’s best performance at the junior athletics tournament in recent years as Team Nigeria finished third on the medal table behind Kenya and Finland with a total of seven medals made up of four gold and three bronze medals.
The 2021 National Sports Festival champion picked up her first gold medal when the quartet of Johnson Nnamani, Opeyemi Oke, Bamidele Ajayi and Imaobong made history as the first winners of the 4x400m mixed relay event at the World Athletics U20 Championship, beating Poland and India to second and third spots, respectively.
She then became the fastest female junior over the 400m when she stormed to gold to win the event before joining Deborah Oke, Ella Onojuvwevwo and Favour Ofili to win the women’s 4x400m gold medal in a world U-20 leading time of 3:31.46 yesterday evening.
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Another performer for Nigeria was Favour Ofili who yesterday ensured that she left Nairobi with three medals after she anchored the women’s 4x400m to win gold in the penultimate event of the World U20 Championships.
Ofili had earlier in the day helped the women’s 4x100m relay team win bronze and she also snapped the bronze medal in the Women’s 200m behind Namibia’s duo of Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi on Saturday.
Udodi Onwuzurike had earlier stormed to men’s 200m gold at the ongoing championships to become the first Nigerian to achieve that feat since Francis Obikwelu won the event in Sydney in 1996.
Onwuzurike, who was born in the United States to Nigerian immigrants, was in a class of his own throughout the race, as he beat championships favourite, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana and South Africa’s Sinesipho Dambile of South Africa to take the victory in a new Personal Best and National U20 Record of 20.21.
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