Thumbs up NWF boss, coaches and others
Nigeria Weightlifters Adijat Olarinoye, Joy Eze and Mary Osijo have thumbed up the role played by their coaches, the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation (NWF) and the Sports Ministry in their performance at the ongoing 2023 African Games holding in Ghana.
Adijat Olarinoye won three gold medals in the Women’s 55kg, Joy Eze also smiled home with three gold medals in the Women’s 71kg event while Mary Osijo grabbed a gold medal and two silver medals in the 87kg women’s event on Thursday.
Olarinoye who is the skipper of the Weightlifting team said she was overwhelmed with joy to have won three gold medals and was full of appreciation to the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation President, Dr Abdul Ibrahim, the coaches and teammates for all the support that aided her victory.
“I am actually short of words. I thank God for everything and i want to thank the Lagos Sports Commission, the Weightlifting Federation, our coaches and my wonderful teammates,” Olarinoye told NWF Media.
Joy Eze also powered home to three gold medals in the women’s 71kg class and she was happy to achieve the feat.
She thanked God for the opportunity and hailed the Weightlifting Federation, the coaches and all others that contributed to her golden performance.
“I want to appreciate God and those he used to achieve my target. I am still anxious for more,” Eze told NWF Media.
Mary Osijo grabbed a gold medal and two silver medals in the 87kg women’s event held on Thursday.
She lifted 128kg in the Clean & Jerk to win a gold medal while she got 103kg in the snatch to finish with a silver medal behind Fatma Mahmoud Sadek Ahmed (Egypt) who lifted 104kg. She got another silver medal in the total lift with 231kg even though she finished with the same total lift with the Egyptian Weightlifter, Sadek Ahmed who had another gold.
A thrilled Osijo praised his coach who instructed her to finish all her six attempts without any default.
She also appreciated the NWF President, Dr. Ibrahim Abdul for all he did to get the Weightlifters ready for the African Games.
“I feel excited and am very happy. My coach always said my six attempts is very important and i got all my six attempts,” Osijo said.
“I thank God, said Mary after winning the medals.
” To win this gold medal was not easy. I love Weightlifting. Its my passion. I thank my coach for inspiring me and giving me encouragement. I also thank the NWF President, Dr Abdul Ibrahim and his team and the Sports Ministry.”
The President of the NWF, Abdul Ibrahim stressed that he was delighted with the 16 gold medals which could still potential increase but that his Federation is working on breaking the 16 gold medals the sport won in Morocco in 2019 which has now been equalled.
“We have had a good result, but i believe that in future tournaments, we will plan to surpass the 16 gold medals won at the 12th African games in Morocco.
So far, we’ ve won 16 gold medals in Ghana. We have one more event tonight to compete” he said .
As at the last count the Weightlifters have won 16 gold, 7 Silver and 6 Bronze medals with the result of Lucky Joseph in the Men’s +109kg event still being awaited as at the time of filing this report.
Nigeria Weightlifting Federation Media
March 14th, 2024
