Nigeria’s first two participants in Tokyo lost out in their events on Saturday morning
The official Day 1 of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is underway and two of Nigeria’s contingent- seven-time Olympian, Olufunke Oshonaike and Esther Toko were in action in table tennis and in the sculls respectively on Saturday morning.Oshonaike, Nigeria’s history maker in table tennis crashed out in the preliminaries to USA’s Juan Liu in five sets. The 45-year-old, ranked 175 in the world, lost 4-1 to her 36-year-old opponent.
Liu, ranked 449 in the world, won the first three sets: 11-7 11-3 11-4 before Oshonaike took the fourth in a tie-break 13-11. But Liu clinched qualification for the first round by claiming the fifth deciding set 11-4.This is Oshonaike’s seventh Olympic Games, which made her the first woman to achieve that feat in table tennis.Nigeria’s only rower at the Tokyo Olympics, Esther Toko failed in her attempt to qualify for the quarter-final of the women’s single sculls event on Saturday morning.
Felice Chow of Trinidad and Tobago and Jeong Hyejeong of South Korea finished first and second with times of 8:15.94 and 8:26.73 respectively to progress to the quarterfinals of the women’s single sculls. Toko came in fourth with a time of 9:07:54. In the second repechage, Paraguay’s Alejandra Alonso came first in a time of 8:08.91, followed by Taipei’s Huang Yi-Ting of Chinese Taipei, who rowed in second to also advance to the quarter-final.
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