By Aderonke Ojo
It was a strong performance for Nigeria Taekwondo athletes as they swept two silver medals at the ANOCA Zone III Games currently taking place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Nigeria’s promising young star Awoniyi Mubarak, making his debut for Nigeria internationally, narrowly missed the Gold medal when Nigeria lost 2-1 to host Burkina Faso in the final in the -68 kg.
Mubarak who is a current National Champion in the -63kg at the last National Sports Festival in Ogun state, defeated his opponent from Benin Republic in the Quarter finals 2-0 before beating his Ghanaian counterpart 2-1 in the semi final to reach the final at the Stade du Aout 4 Indoor Sports Hall in Ouagadougou.
Daniel Chukwudi also clinched a silver medal in the -80Kg after losing to his opponent from Burkina Faso in a fight he competed all through with an injury he picked up in the semi final against his Benin Republic opponent.
The Coach of the Nigerian team, Yahuza Ibrahim has however expressed satisfaction with the performance of the athletes, describing the tournament as a good platform for the boys who are competing for Nigeria internationally for the first time.
” I am really impressed with the outcome of this tournament because we used it to expose some of our grassroots athletes that the Nigeria Taekwondo Federation recently discovered and for them to win medals shows that we are doing a very good job with our grassroots programmes”.
” We decided to come to this competition with newly discovered athletes and it is a massive boost that they competed with other experienced athletes and they still won medals”.
Coach Ibrahim who has produced an Olympic athlete for Nigeria in Isah Adams and other International Taekwondo athletes, also commended the National Sports Commission, NSC, and the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC, for availing the Taekwondo Federation this kind of regional competitions to expose its athletes to regular competitions.
Nigeria is currently taking part in four Sports at the ANOCA Zone III Games in Ouagadougou, namely Badminton, Weightlifting, Wrestling and Taekwondo.