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Team Nigeria’s hope of winning the first medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was dashed on Tuesday night following dismal performances of Favour Ofili in the final of the women’s 200m and Blessing Oborududu, who lost her bronze medal match of the women’s 68kg freestyle wrestling.
Ofili clocked 22.24s to finish sixth in the 200m final won by USA’s Gabby Thomas in a time of 21.83s.
New women’s 100m champion Julie Alfred came in second in 22.08s, with another American, Brittany Brown, completing the podium with a time of 22.20s.
Ofili, 21, was unable to make up for her 100m miss with a medal in the event, having run a new season’s best of 22.05s to book her place in the final on Monday. She beat her 22.24s, which she ran in the heats on Sunday.
She is the first Nigerian woman to qualify for the final of the 200m at the Olympics in 28 years after Mary Onyali did at the Atlanta 1996 Games, where she won a bronze medal.
At the Champ de Mars arena, Oborududu lost 3-0 in the bronze medal match of the women’s 68 kg freestyle wrestling to Japan’s Nonoka Ozaki.
Oborududu, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games, had suffered a narrow 3-1 defeat to Kyrgyzstan’s Meerim Zhumanazarova in the semi-finals on Monday night.
Still without a medal at the Paris Games, Team Nigeria’s hopes now rest on women’s 100m hurdles record holder, Tobi Amusan, who begins her campaign today among others in athletics, weightlifting, and even wrestling.
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