Favour Ofili defied her young age, relative inexperience and a previous battle with Covid-19 to win a silver medal for Team Nigeria at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games tonight.
The 19-year-old, who broke the Nigerian 200m record with a 21.96 seconds run earlier this year, finished second in the 200m final tonight to claim silver, her first Commonwealth Games medal.
Despite having had to miss the 100m earlier in the week due to Covid-19, Ofili clocked 22.51s, finishing behind multiple Olympics and World Athletics Championships medallist Elaine Thompson-Herah, who clinched gold in a new Games record of 22.02s.
Namibia’s Christine Mboma finished finished third and won the bronze medal, clocking 22.80s.
Earlier tonight, Nigerian quartet of Raymond Ekevwo, Favour Ashe, Alaba Akintola and Seye Ogunlewe qualified for the final of the men’s 4x100m relay.
They won Heat 2 of the semi-finals in 38.85s, with Kenya coming second in 38.92s and Gambia third in 39.77s to make it an African sweep of the top three positions.
Team Nigeria’s time is the third best among the eight teams heading to tomorrow’s final, with England on top with 38.48s, followed by Trinidad and Tobago who finished in 38.84s.
Team Nigeria also eased into the 4x100m women’s final after coming first in their semi-final heat in 42.57s.
Ofili, Joy Udo-Gabriel, Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha ran the four legs for the Nigerian team, who produced the best time of the eight qualified teams ahead of England (42.72s) and Australia (43.47s).
In the men’s 400m hurdles final, Nigeria’s Ezekiel Nathaniel came sixth in 51.38s.
Kyron McMaster of British Virgin Islands breezed through to win gold in 48.93s, with Jaheel Hyde of Jamaica second in a time of 49.78s and Alastair Chalmers of Guernsey third in 49.97s.
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