Nigeria Finishes 2nd At 9th African Canoe Olympic Qualifiers
Team Nigeria on Sunday finished in second position as table-toppers, South Africa emerged as the overall winners of the 9th African Canoe Olympic Qualifiers, at the Jabi Boat Club in Abuja, Nigeria.
The Confederation of African Canoeing (CAC), Canoe Sprint/Para-canoe African Championships also served as an Olympic qualifier for the Paris 2024.
No fewer than 16 African countries including, Ghana, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, Togo and hosts Nigeria took part in the four-day event in Abuja. The Olympic event competed for were; C1 200M Women, C2 500M Women, C1 1000M Men C2 500M Men, K1 1000M Men, K2 500M Men, K1 500M Women and K2 500M Women.
The winner in each category qualified directly into the games, while the second and third would have to explore other windows of qualification to compete in Paris in 2024.
Table-toppers team South Africa amassed a total of eight medals, including eight gold and one bronze to emerge as the championships’ overall winners. Team Nigeria also amassed a total of 9 medals, including 4 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze to finish as runners-up.
Nigeria’s Ayomide Bello, who finished as the overall best female athlete, won 3 gold medals in all the three events she competed for including the C1 women 200m (55secs. 14ms), C1 Women 500m (2mins.23secs.74ms).
She also combined well with Otuedo Beauty in the C2 Women 500m (2mins.24secs..45ms) as both emerged winners of the event. The duo of Endurance Godhelp and Celestine Etoi also won gold for Nigeria in the K2 men’s 200m race (38 secs 20 ms).
Tunisia with a total of 15 medals, including 3 gold, 5 silver and 7 bronze finished in the third position. While, Senegal with a total of 5 medals, including 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze settled for the fourth position. Algeria with 12 medals, including 2 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze were fifth.
Angola finished with 7 medals, including 2 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze placed sixth. In seventh position was Mozambique with 3 medals, consisting of 2 gold and 1 silver. Egypt finished with 12 medals consisting of 1 gold, 5 silver and 6 silver completed the top eight teams.
Morocco with 1 gold and 1 silver were ninth, while both Sao Tome and Principe as well as Ghana were joint 10th with 2 bronze medals each. Both Seychelles and Cote d’Ivoire ended the championships with no single medal to their credit.
The championships which began on Wednesday ended on Sunday at the Jabi Boat Club in Abuja.
