Following disappointing performances by Favour Ofili in the women’s 200-meter final and Blessing Oborududu, who lost her bronze medal match in the women’s 68kg freestyle wrestling, Team Nigeria’s hopes of taking home the first medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games were shattered on Tuesday night.
After finishing sixth in the 200-meter final, which was won by USA’s Gabby Thomas in 21.83 seconds, Ofili ran 22.24 seconds.
In a timing of 22.08 seconds, Julie Alfred, the reigning women’s 100-meter champion, finished in second place. Brittany Brown, another American, completed the podium in 22.20 seconds.
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.
