Emmanuel Arowolo and Rosemary Chukwuma, both of Nigeria Customs, won the 100 meters male and female events in the African Games (AAG) Trials organized by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
The trials are meant to select athletics for the Games scheduled for Morocco in August.
In the trials held at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, Arowolo won the male race in 10.45 seconds while Chukwuma finished for the women in 11.55 seconds.
Arowolo, however, said that after Tuesday’s race that he hopes to improve on his time before the Games camp opens in order to do the country proud in Morocco.
“I am happy I won the race but I hope to intensify training before camp opens so that I can improve.
“My personal best 10.31 seconds, so am working to even better that,” he said.
Chukwuma on her part also stressed the need for continuous training and early camping ahead of the AAG.
Earlier, President of the AFN, Ibrahim Gusau, had said the trials was key to preparing for the Games in spite of the fact that most foreign-based athletes were not present at the trials.
He said camping would begin on July 5 where both the foreign-based and the home-based athletes would slug it out to be part of Nigeria’s contingent to Morocco.
“We are expecting personal bests and national bests will be recorded at this trials,
“We have very tall ambitions in the federation and we pray that we meet them because the Ministry of Youths and Sports has asked us how many medals we are expecting and we gave them our expectations,” Gusau said.
The trials with over 1,000 home-based athletes are expected to end on Wednesday with winners emerging in all the track and field events.
The African Games will hold in Rabat from Aug. 19 to Aug. 31.
