... As Lagos Athletics Open championship offers final chance
Four out of the five Team Nigeria relay teams that are still battling to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will get the final chance to get the precious tickets on Thursday in the Lagos Open Athletics Championship scheduled to hold at the Teslim Balogun stadium.
The teams failed to take advantage of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN, Olympic Trials and Invitational Relays which ended on Sunday.
Although the women’s 4x100m team increased their chances of qualifying for the Olympics by moving a step up from 16th to 15th following their 42.98seconds return at the Trials, their male counterparts are faced with a more difficult task as they must outrun Trinidad and Tobago who are presently occupying the final qualification (16th) spot.
In the absence of Divine Oduduru and Raymond Ekevwo, it will take something special for the team to run inside 38.46 seconds which is the time that has provisionally qualified Trinidad and Tobago for the Games.
The women’s 4x400m team will also have to put behind them the disappointment of not even breaking 3.31 on Sunday and will go all out after a four day rest to break 3.29 and get on the plane to Tokyo.
The team is presently down by one step to 18th after Belarus and Switzerland moved into 13th and 15th spots respectively following their impressive performances at the weekend.
The Nigerian relay team will have to run 3:28.13 to be absolutely certain of making the trip to Japan next month.
The men’s 4x400m team and the 4x400m mixed relays will also have to give their 100% before they can dream of running at the Olympics.
The men’s 1600 team will have to run 3:02.58 to provisionally move into the final qualification spot or 3:02.41 to be absolutely certain of making the trip to the Olympics.