Flora Ugwunwa set a new world record in the women’s javelin – F54 event on Tuesday at the Rio Paralympics to give Nigeria its seventh gold medal.
She recorded a throw of 20.25 metres after six attempts to win the gold medal and take Nigeria’s tally to seven gold, two silver and one bronze medals.
On a day when Nigeria’s medals search was looking to be futile after some failure in the favourite hunting ground of power-lifting, the athletics event provided succour.
Ugwunwa beat a field of nine to set new Paralympic and world records, while Tunisia’s Hania Aidi won the silver medal with a throw of 18.88m.
South Africa’s Ntombizanele Situ completed the African sweep of the event’s medals by winning the bronze medal with a heave of 17.90m.
Earlier in the day, Nigeria had been so close but still far from winning any medal on the day after some unsuccessful outings.
In power-lifting men’s -88kg, Opeyemi Jegede could only place fifth, while Abdulazeez Ibrahim placed sixth in power-lifting men’s -97 kg
The Games will come to an end on Sunday.
NAN
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Congratulations and well done to Nigerian Paralympic Athletes. Wow.. what an achievement ! A world record broken … now that is something to truly rejoice about and be proud. These successes mean so much more in developing countries where virtually no support is given to these athletes and corruption denies them of state support as well. Competing with athletes from countries like UK where lottery money is literarilly given to athletes and sporting facilities are in fantastic state to encourage and enable optimal performance is achievement extraordinary. Kudos to Naija Paralympic athletes. You have done us proud. I hope and pray that the Presidency recognizes these results and rewards them accordingly.