Rosemary Chukwuma recorded Nigeria’s first medal with a gold in the 100m event on day 5 of the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Monday.
Chukwuma finished third in the first stage of the race with a time of 12.03 seconds, but cut almost a second off her second try, crossing the finish line at 11.17 seconds and claiming the gold.
The athletes competed in two stages of the competition with the performance of each athlete in both stages added together to determine the overall final placing.
The 2018 Commonwealth Games Bronze medallist in the 4x100m ran below her Personal Best of 11.55 seconds.
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She was Nigeria’s youngest athlete at the Commonwealth Games and anchored the 4x100m relay.
Julien Alfred from Santa Lucia took silver, while Gabriela Anahi Suarez from Ecuador got bronze.
The 2017 National U-18 sprint champion told the media in Buenos Aires that she is satisfied with her performance.
“I am happy and satisfied because before coming to Argentina I did not have good results,” Chukwuma said.
“I was scared that I would not get what I hoped for at these Games. I did not think that it was possible, but God sees to everything. I started to train in 2016 and I traveled to Australia last year to prepare in this discipline, then continued training in Nigeria.”
Chukwuma was part of the country’s 4×100 women’s team that won gold at the African Senior Athletics Championship in Asaba this year.
She also won gold at the 100m and 200m at the 2018 Africa Youth Games in Algeria.
Meanwhile, Alaba Akintola ran a time of 10.24 seconds to finish with a silver medal in the 100m men’s event at the Youth Olympic Games.
South Africa’s Luke Davies finished with a gold medal while Seiryo Ikeda raced to third place.
Davids proved to be the fastest young runner in the world over the two stages of the 100m competition at Buenos Aires 2018. He crossed the finish line in 10.56 seconds in the first stage and in the second stage he lowered his time to 10.15 seconds.
Ineh Oritsemeyiwa of Nigeria will compete in the men’s triple jump on day 6 of the competition.
Buenos Aires 2018 will be the scenario for 32 sports and 36 disciplines with 286 high adrenaline sport sessions and 1250 medals awarded.
