5th July, 2011
History continues to write itself at the ongoing 17th National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, south-south, Nigeria, as athletes break records in different events.
The 20km race was no exception as one of the Team Rivers athletes wrote his name in gold in the history of the national tournament.
Two National records were broken. First, it was the men 20km walk, where Rivers’Lawal Oluwaseyi walked in a time of 1hr 45mins 26 secs to erase a 20-year-old record of 1hr 47mins 25secs set by Oluwole Ojunaya at the Bauchi 1991 Sports Festival.
Hussain Yunusa of Ogun State came second to take home the silver medal and Eghosa Akinber of Bayelsa won the bronze medal of the event.
The second record was in the women’s 20km walk where Idosa Florence from Edo State walked in a time of 1hr 58mins. 41secs, beating the former record of Queensly Asedo of Edo State, who walked 1hr 59mins 36secs at the 2009 KADA Games. Henshaw Queen of Rivers State won the silver medal and Joy Daves of Delta went home with the bronze medal.
In the 5000m women’s walk, Agidi Omoyemi of Ondo walked in a time of 17hr 20mins 28secs to win the gold medal, while Pam Deborah of Plateau finished in a time of 17hr 52mins 28secs to win the silver medal and Blessing Michael of Kaduna came third in a time of 17hr 52mins 54secs.
—Seun Bisuga / Port Harcourt