Rio 2016: More Gold for Team Nigeria as Medals Hit 10 at Paralympics

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Ugwunwa Flora secured gold in the Women’s javelin throw to increase the Team Nigeria’s contingent to the 2016 Paralympic Games total haul so far to ten and also ninth on the medal table.

Ugwunwa, set a new world record with 20.25 metres after six attempts in the finals, outclassing fellow African duo of Tunisia’s Aidi Hania and South Africa’s Situ Ntombizaneleof to finished second and third respectively.

The latest helped Nigeria secured seven gold medals on Tuesday after Ndidi Nwosu, Bose Omolayo and Lauritta Onye already won gold medals in power-lifting and para-athletics events to take Nigeria’s haul to seven gold, two silver and one bronze medals.

Nwosu had earlier in the day equalled the Paralympics Games record of 140kg to win the women’s -73kg event. Souhad Ghazouani of France who had earlier set the new Paralympic Games record won the silver medal, while Egypt’s Amany Ali won the bronze.

Omolayo on the other hand won the women’s -79 kg by lifting 138kg and setting new Paralympics Games and world records, while China’s Xu Lili won the event’s silver medal. Taipei’s Lin Tzu-Hui picked the bronze medal.

For Onye, a former popular Nollywood actress known as `Laury White’, her own gold came in the para athletics as she made a final throw of 8.40m to set a new world record in the women’s shot put F40 event.

Onye who won silver at the 2011 Africa Games broke the world record with her first throw of 7.83m to erase the old record of 7.72m she set at the 2015 IPC World Athletics Championships in Doha.

Her second throw hit the 7.54m mark, while her third attempt went one centimetre further before she eventually clinched gold with 8.40m on her fourth attempt. Abdelli Rima of Tunisia finished second behind Onye with a final throw of 7.37metres, while Baars Lara of the Netherlands got bronze with a throw of 7.12m.

Onye’s gold is Team Nigeria’s first in athletics at the ongoing Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the powerlifting has given the country five gold, two silver and one bronze medals, while athletics has fetched one gold.

Nigeria is also competing in para table tennis but has since crashed out after all the country’s athletes in the sport singles events were knocked out.

SOURCE: NAN

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