Nwokocha secures Tokyo Olympics ticket

Grace Nwokocha has qualified for the women’s 100m event for Tokyo Olympic Games after beating the 11.15secs qualifying time set by the World Athletics at the 3rd Making of Champion (MOC) Grand Prix held at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

The 20-year-old Nwokocha stormed to a World Lead (WL), MR and PB of 11.09s, in a run that saw her meeting the qualification time for the Olympics.

She is the third Nigerian woman after Ruth Usoro and Favour Ofili picked their tickets this year in the United States.

Meanwhile, Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala set a new Kenyan national record to pick his ticket to Tokyo in the men’s 100m at the 3rd Making of Champion (MOC) Grand Prix held at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.

Also in the race, MoC’s Joy Udo-Gabriel set a new Personal Best (PB) 10.34s, while Praise Idamadudu got in on the PB train to place 3rd with 11.46.

Kenyan Omanyala, an undergraduate at the University of Nairobi, came to Nigeria with two motives: to break the Kenyan National Record (NR) and qualify for the Olympics, and with his first race on the red tartan track of the stadium, he blitzed to a new NR and Meet Record (MR) of 10.01s to win his heat.

Making of Champions (MoC) athlete Favour Ashe who had qualified for the World Juniors, put up a magnificent showing in the heats, clocking a new Personal Best (PB) of 10.17s before following it up with a 10.07s run in the final to place 3rd. His semi-final run sees him move to World No. 2 on the World U20 Junior list.

NP/Mercy Chukwudiebere