With three athletes, Nigeria made its presence count at the 18th African Sambo Championships with five medals to show for their efforts at the three-day championships held at the Cairo International Stadium in Egypt.
The athletes who were medalists at the last African Games in Ghana showed class against their counterparts from 21 other African countries with Charity Jatau claiming the only gold medal for Nigeria in the women’s 59kg.
Jatau, the African Games gold medalist was not intimidated by the home crowd in the final against Egypt’s Ragar Alaa as she floored her opponent 5-2 to claim Nigeria’s first gold and medal at the continental championships.
On the same day, Fatima Ogbonyomi worked her way to the final, but she was unlucky to add another gold as she fell to Morocco’s Wissal 3-0 to settle for silver in the women’s 65kg division.
The only male athlete in the team, James Chegwam worked his way to the final with a bronze medal in the African games after defeating his opponents from Togo and Congo DRC in his first two fights only to lose the gold medal to his Moroccan counterpart and settle for silver in the men’s 58kg.
The duo of Jatau and Chegwam added two bronze medals after settling for bronze in the beach Sambo on Monday, June 3.
An excited Jatau described the experience as a worthwhile one while expressing appreciation to the Sambo Association of Nigeria (SAN) for supporting their quest to be part of the tournament. “I thank the federation for believing in us despite being our maiden outing in the competition and we have proved that we can compete with the rest of the world with this kind of performance,” Jatau said.
“I am so excited to be a Gold medalist and I am grateful to the leadership of SAN for their support, and I hope this will also help to launch us to the global platform to compete at the world level,” Chegwam said.
For the Vice President of SAN, Sheriff Hammed, the athletes gave a good account of themselves despite competing for the first time in the continental tournament. “We are very impressed with the athletes’ performance and with this outing, Nigeria has joined the elite teams from Africa that will also be considered to compete at the world level. I must commend the athletes for their professionalism throughout the competition and we hope this performance will inspire other athletes to join the sport and help to popularise the sport in Nigeria,” Hammed said.