Team Nigeria’s Grace Nwokocha on Monday in Tokyo at the ongoing 2020 Olympic Games advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s 200 metres event.
Nwokocha ran a personal best of 22.47 seconds to finish third in heat 1 of the event to gain one of the automatic tickets to the semi-finals.
Cote d’Ivoire’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou had won the heat with 22.30, while the Bahamas’ Shaunae Miller-Uibo was second with 22.40.
The 20-year-old Nigerian had reached the semi-finals of the women’s 100m event, where she ran an 11.07 on Sunday.
It had only helped her to place fifth in semi-final 3, a result that was not enough for her to move to the final which was ran later in the day.
But this was after she had ran another personal best 11.00 to place third from heat 5 on Saturday in the event’s round one to progress to the semi-finals.
The women’s 200m semi-finals are due for later on Monday, while the final is slated for Tuesday.
Meanwhile, it was another “near miss” for Team Nigeria on Monday at the ongoing 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo as medal hope Tobiloba Amusan failed to deliver.
Amusan, running from lane 6 in the women’s 100 metres hurdles final at the Olympic Stadium finished fourth after a time of 12.60 seconds.
It was 0.05 of a second behind Megan Tapper of Jamaica who clocked 12.55 to sneak in on the bronze medal from lane 9 just with a dip of her head.
The 24-year-old Nigerian’s performance was indeed an improvement, having ran 12.72 in round one and 12.62 in the semi-finals, But she was up against qualitative opposition.
Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn who holds the Olympic record of 12.26, set in the semi-finals on Sunday, won the event’s gold medal with a time of 12.37.
World record-holder Kendra Harrison of the U.S, who ran 12.20 at London in 2016, won the silver with 12.52.
Amusan now has the women’s 4 x 100m relay race to look forward to.
