Team Nigeria Climbs Rio Paralympics Medal Table

Team Nigeria Climbs Rio Paralympics Medal Table

The Rio Paralympics is proving to be a tournament to remember for Nigeria after three of her athletes claimed gold Monday to bring the total gold to seven and shoot her to the top of the African medal standing.

Ndidi Nwosu competing in the 73kg of the powerlifting event floored her opponents with a lift of 140kg to win gold ahead of Souhad Ghazuoani from France who also lifted 140kg but settled for the silver and Egypt’s Amany Ali who lifted 137kg to get the bronze.

Bose Omolayo came up tops in the 79kg event with a lift of 138kg, beating China’s Lili Xu and Taipei’s Tzu-Hui Lin to the silver and bronze respectively.

Meanwhile Lauritta Onye threw an astonishing 8.40m to not only claim gold in the shot put event, but set a new Paralympics record, Vanguard writes.

With the three gold medals won yesterday, the Nigerian contingent sits atop the African countries with a total of 10 medals (7G, 2S, 1B) while Tunisia is now second with 10 medals (4G, 4S, 2B), South Africa has eight medals(3G, 3S, 2B), Algeria nine medals(1G, 4S, 4B) and Egypt has seven medals(1G, 3S, 3B).

Meanwhile China maintains her lead on the overall medals table with 41gold, 33silver and 24bronze while Britain with 24 gold is second, Ukraine is third with 19 gold and USA remains fourth with 13 gold.

The tournament ends September 18th.