Izuchukwu OkosiWednesday, March 20th, was Team Nigeria’s best day thus far at the ongoing 13th African Games with individual and team excellence in the track and field events.
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan won the gold medal in the final of the 100m women’s hurdles on Wednesday evening and one hour later anchored Nigeria’s 4x100m mixed doubles relay team to winning another gold at th University of Accra Sports Complex.
Amusan ran an impeccable time of 13.19 seconds – slightly slower than the 12.12 seconds she did at the 2022 World Athletics Championship in Eugene, Oregon.
Amusan was handed a yellow card after a false start which she blamed on distraction from the crowd.
Chidi Anthony Okezie belted to the finish line despite a rather slow start to win the gold medal in the men’s 400m final. Okezie boisterous celebration in front of the cameras.
Esther Elo Joseph, a name Nigerians will all get used to very soon – had three ‘Personal Bests’ in three races and left no one in doubt that she is destined for the top.
All her 400m races in Ghana have all been sub 52s, and she capped it off with a Silver medal in her first major championship for Nigeria, clocking a new PB of 51.64s.
Nigeria also claimed gold in the 4×100 m Men’s relay with a time of 38.41seconds beating the defending champions Ghana who clocked 38.43 while Team Liberia came third with a time of 38.73.
Team Nigeria was made of Isreal Sunday, Itsekiri Usheoritse, Ekanem Consider and Akintola Alaba Olukunle.
Ghana had initially led the race after the first two changes of the baton but the final change to anchor leg Joseph Amoah had a hitch which led to Nigeria closing in to nick the gold medal.
Interestingly, Ghana won the gold while Team Nigeria won silver in same event when Nigeria hosted the competition in 2003.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
