Team Nigeria’s captain at the ongoing Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Lucy Ejike has demonstrated that she is a leader indeed, shattering the Paralympic and World Record three successive times to dominate the women’s -61kg event in Powerlifting.
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Ejike first broke the Paralympic record by lifting 136kg before subsequently adding lifts of 138kg and 142kg to seal the world record and hand Nigeria with their third gold medal of the Games. Only four days into the Games, the greatest 4,300-plus para-athletes in the world are already almost halfway to surpassing the 2012 London Paralympic total of 251 records broken.
Powerlifting gave the country the previous medals and one of the gold medals yesterday, but athletics also came to the party with a gold in the shot put event. She then upgraded to gold at Athens 2004, winning with a WR of 127.5kg.
Gu Xiaofei of China took the silver medal with a best attempt of 228kg.
Nwosu, Monday afternoon, beat the defending champion to win the women’s -73kg Power-lifting event. Latifat Tijani and Esther Onyema won Silver medals respectively.
Stephen Miller also kept the momentum up in his sixth Paralympics Games with a bronze medal in the F32 club throw.
The first bronze medal for Nigeria was won by Nnamdi Innocent in the men’s -72kg of Powerlifting.
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Nigeria is also competing in para-athletics, which has yielded one gold medal so far, and para table tennis.
