Christian Mmadubuike Ifeanyichukwu (middle) won gold medal in the T46 200m event
Nigeria’s Christian Mmadubuike Ifeanyichukwu has set a new world record in the T46 200m at the Tunis 2019 Para Athletics Grand Prix, as the 4-man Nigerians at the event showed unusual strength to raise its medal haul to 4 gold, 3 silver on Day Two of the competition.
The competition serves as qualifying tournament for the Japan 2020 Paralympic Games.
Ifeanyichukwu who is on his first international competition ran a time of 22.20 seconds to shake off a hot challenge by his Indonesian counterpart to win his second gold medal at the tournament after he had also returned first in the 100m on Day One.
The world record which the Nigerian athlete broken was 24.45 seconds.
His compatriot, Uwak Unyime Christopher, also seized her moment in the women category, finishing at 27.03 to best her Indonesian and Mozambican chasers for the gold. She adds to her silver medal in the 100m in which she ran 13 seconds on the opening day.
Rio 2016 Paralympic medalist, Flora Ugwunwa, also added a silver in the women F54 600gr Javelin event to her opening day gold medal in her regular F58 category in which she threw 18.04m, two metres below her world record of 20.25m.
Flora opted to try her hands in the F54 javelin which is above her weight category just to make up for the inability of other Nigerian athletes to attend the competition due to fund constraints.
Lauritta Onye, also a Rio 2016 gold medalist and world record holder in F40 shot put contributes to the medals tally with silver finish on opening day. Her 8.15m throw was however the best of the tournament, but President of the Nigeria Para Athletics Federation, Chikwendu Amobi, has explained that her placement was only as a result of the use of direct instead of Fazza computation for her.
“All the athletes have done very well. We are here with four athletes and they have won four gold medals and three silver medals. We are the smallest contingent here but we have a strong standing on the table, including setting a world record. We are not perturbed about Lauritta second position. She threw the best distance but they decided to use direct instead of the Fazza standard computation for her. We believe she will retain her world best position at the IPC World Championship in Dubai in November and would improve even better at the Paralympics,” he assured.
Nigeria has 6 gold and 3 silver medals.