Amusan grabs two gold medals, Okezie wins 400m race

Tobi Amusan celebrates…

World Record holder in 100m hurdles, Tobi Amusan, yesterday, proved why she is Africa’s best track and field star, as she grabbed two gold medals to pump up Team Nigeria’s medals haul at the ongoing 13th African Games in Ghana.

After winning gold in the 100m hurdles to retain her title, Tobi Express, as she is fondly called, anchored Nigeria’s 4x100m relay to a gold medal. The Nigerians won in 43.05 sec well ahead of Liberia and Ghana.

Nigeria made it double by winning the men’s 4x100m relay gold medal a few minutes later beating Ghana and Liberia. Before the relay events, Amusan won the women’s 100m hurdles, making her the African woman to win a hat-trick at the African Games.

The women took off after a nervous start and had to be cautioned, but when they finally set off, it was Amusan all the way to the finish line. She took the gold with a time of 12.89 seconds a bit slower than the 12.68 seconds Games record she did in Rabat 2019.

But the star of the day was Chidi Okezie in the men’s 400m. It seemed the leggy Nigerian runner made up his mind he was tired of winning a bronze medal in the African contest having won three African Championships bronze and one African Games bronze in 2019.

Okezie overhauled race favorites Zambia’s Muzala Samukonga and Senegal’s Tidiane Diouf in the last curve and stormed powerfully home to finish at 45.06 seconds a personal best and Nigeria’s fastest time in recent years. Samukonga placed second with 45.37 secs .

Chidi Okezie 45.06 seconds 45.49secs. Nigeria’s other runner, Duben Nwachukwu had a bad day in the office; he finished at the rear with 47.13secs.

In the women’s race defending champion Mary Morra of Kenya proved too strong for Esther Elo Joseph. The Nigerian