African Games champion, Tosin Oke got his new season underway with victory at last weekend’s British National Indoor Championships. Having been invited by the British Athletics Federation as a guest athlete, Oke led the way to win the title in 16.48m.
Interestingly, it was a distance Oke achieved with only one attempt. Another Nigerian athlete, Kola Adedoyin was also in action and finished 10th with a mark of 15.04m. Two Britons, Nathan Fox and Nathan Douglas finished 2nd and 3rd with 16.21m and 15.93m respectively.
Oke who is Nigeria’s reigning Triple Jump champion, was grateful to have started competing this season, and even revealed via his official Twitter page that he would be at the 2016 World Indoor Championships later this month: “It was good to get a jump in this indoor season, after a far from ideal preparation. Time to go home and prepare for Portland 2016”, he wrote.
There were also other Nigerian athletes who competed in the same meet. 2014 African Championships Silver medallist, Alex Al-Ameen made the 60m hurdles final, and finished 7th with a Season’s Best (SB) of 7.90s. Andrew Pozzi won the race in 7.61s, with Lawrence Clarke and David Omoregie coming 2nd and 3rd in 7.65s and 7.71s respectively.
Nigeria’s Decathlete, Peter Moreno equally took part in the 60m hurdles and finished 6th in Heat 3 in 9.84s. Moreno will be counting on the experience to help him improve in his main event, the Decathlon, particularly the 110m hurdles where he unluckily tumbled last year to lose pace on the standings at last year’s African Games.
