Nigeria made their presence count at the 18th African Sambo Championships in Egypt, with five medals to show for their efforts at the three-day championships held at the Cairo International Stadium, PRIMANEWS Sports Extra reports.
The country’s three athletes at the championship claimed one goal, two silver and two bronze medals.
The athletes who were medallists at the last African Games in Ghana, where Sambo debuted as one of the demonstration sports, showed class against their counterparts from 21 other African countries with Charity Jatau claiming the only gold medal for Nigeria in the women’s 59kg.
Jatau, an African Games gold medallist, was not intimidated by the home crowd in the final against Egypt’s Ragar Alaa as she floored her opponent 5-2 to claim Nigeria’s first gold and medal at the continental championships.
On the same day, Fatima Ogbonyomi worked her way to the final, but she was unlucky to add another gold as she fell to Morocco’s Wissal 3-0 to settle for silver in the women’s 65kg division.
The only male athlete in the team, James Chegwam worked his way to the final from bronze medal in African Games after defeating his opponents from Togo and DR Congo in his first two fights but lost the gold medal to his Moroccan counterpart to settle for silver in the men’s 58kg.
Duo Jatau and Chegwam added two bronze medals after settling for bronze in the beach Sambo on Monday.
Returning with a gold and a bronze, an excited Jatau described the experience as worthwhile.
“I thank the federation for believing in us despite being our maiden outing in the competition and we have proved that we can compete with the rest of the world with this kind of performance. I hope this will also help to launch us to the global platform to compete at the world level,” Jatau said.
Vice president of Sambo Association of Nigeria, Sheriff Hammed, also praised the athletes for making the country proud on their debut.
“We are very impressed with the athletes’ performance and with this outing, Nigeria has joined the elite teams from Africa that will also be considered to compete at the world level. I must commend the athletes for their professionalism throughout the competition and we hope this performance will inspire other athletes to join the sport and help to popularise the sport in Nigeria,” Hammed said.
