The duo of Elizabeth Anyanacho and Benjamin Okuomose won bronze medals for Nigeria at the just concluded 8th Fujairah Open, which held at the Sheikh Zayed Sport City Stadium Fujairah.
In the female -67kg category, Nigeria’s Elizabeth Anyanacho defeated double Asian Games Bronze Medalist, Tajikistan’s Mokhru Khalimova 3-0 in the quarterfinals, before losing 8-11 in the semi-finals to the number one seed, Jordan’s Al-Sadeq Julyan.
In the male +87kg category, Nigeria’s Benjamin Okuomose clinched Nigeria’s second by defeating Russia’s Gabrasov Pabel 30–10 and UAE’s Amidu Amidu 36–11 before losing 27-32 to eventual gold medalist, Mexico’s Carlos Adrian Sansores.
In the female +73kg category, Kenya’s Faith Ogallo lost in the finals to Kus Nafia of Turkey, after defeating Abdelelazim Yaraa Shraf of UAE in the quarterfinals and Alsedah Aysheh of Jordan in the semi-finals.
In the female -57kg, African Champion, Chinazum Nwosu overcame UAE’s Ramadhan Fatema Yusuf before losing in the golden point round to Asian Champion and former two-time world youth champion, Lo Chia-Ling of Chinese Taipei.
In the male -80kg, Nigeria Open gold medalist Peter Itiku defeated Kenya’s Wafula Innocent 25 – 5 in the round of 32, before losing 7 – 14 to current World Silver Medalist, Brazil’s Martins Soares Icaro Miguel.
In the male -74kg, Nigeria’s undisputed national champion Ifeoluwa Ajayi was defeated 13 – 24 in the round of 64 by Uzbekistan’s Tukhtasinboev Mavionbek.
Team Nigeria was represented at the event the quintuplet; African Champion, Chinazum Nwosu, African Bronze medalists Benjamin Okuomose and Elizabeth Anyanacho, National Champions and Nigeria Open gold medalists Ifeoluwa Ajayi and Peter Itiku.
Participating in the senior’s kyeorugi [fighting] event of the World Taekwondo G-2 ranking event were 383 senior athletes from 10 African countries, including Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Chad, Kenya, Sudan, Cameroon and Benin Republic.
Other countries included USA, China, Greece, Germany, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, India, Syria, Russia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Chinese Taipei, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Brazil, Swaziland, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan, Sweden, French Guinea, Oman, USA, Croatia, Iran, Mauritania, France and Nepal.
The team is expected to arrive back in Nigeria from UAE on 4th February 2020.
