Team Nigeria has recorded its first major success at the ongoing 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games following the winning of gold medal by the country’s powerlifter, Latifat Tijani, who won in the female 45kg event. Tijani defeated China’s Zhe Cui to lift 107kg. She was a gold medallist at the Brazzaville 2015 Africa Games and silver medallist at the Rio 2016 Paralympics, who will also be in the women’s 45kg straight gold medal contest the same day. Before Tijani’s success, one of Nigeria’s para powerlifting medal hope Yakubu Adesokan, missed out to reach the podium in the finals in men’s 49kg powerlifting.

Team Nigeria won a total of seven medals at the just concluded U20 Athletics Championships in Nairobi, Kenya on Sunday. The country’s team won four gold and three bronze medals, finishing third overall on the final medal table, while host nation, Kenya finished at first place with eight gold, one silver, and seven Bronze and Finland in second place with four gold and one silver.

German sportswear manufacturing company, Puma has terminated its N1 billion four-year contract with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) which it had entered in July 2019, in Doha. The contract which was due to expire in 2022 before its termination stated that Puma will supply kits to all age categories to Nigeria’s athletics team for four years.

Nigerian wrestler Blessing Oborududu has won the first silver medal for Nigeria in the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics. She lost the final of the 68kg women’s freestyle wrestling event 4-1 to America’s Tamyra Mensah-Stock but won silver in the process. Oborududu is the first Nigerian wrestler ever to win a silver medal at the Games. The 32-year-old athlete, who is also the first-ever Nigerian to win an Olympics medal in wrestling, qualified for the final after defeating Mongolia’s Soronzonboldyn Battsetseg 7-2 in the semi-finals on Monday.

Nigeria’s Ese Brume has won the first medal for the country in the Olympic long jump event. She won bronze in women’s long jump on Tuesday after finishing third. Brume leaped 6.97 metres with her very first jump to claim bronze behind second-placed Brittany Reece of the United States and gold medallist Malaika Mihambo of Germany. It is Nigeria’s first track and field medal at the Olympics since 2008 when Okagbare won a silver medal in Beijing. It also makes the long jump the first individual event to give Nigeria three medals at the Olympics with Chioma Ajunwa’s gold at the Atlanta ‘96 Olympics topping Okagbare’s silver from 2008 and Brume’s bronze.

Commonwealth champion Blessing Oborududu on Monday made history as the first Nigerian to reach the final of a wrestling event at the Olympics, after recording an impressive 7-2 victory against London 2012 Olympics bronze medallist Battsetseg Soronzonbold of Mongolia in a semi-final clash. Her qualification guarantees Team Nigeria a silver or gold medal in Tokyo Olympics The impressive Nigerian, a 10-time African champion will face Americas’ Tamyra Mensah-Stock in Tuesday’s 68kg women’s freestyle final, after the World champion overpowered Ukraine’s Alla Cherkasova 10-4 in the first semi-final. Oborodudu won a gold medal at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in the 68kg women’s freestyle wrestling event, defeating Canada’s Danielle Lappage, and she is optimistic she will achieve a similar feat in Tokyo.