By Victor Kanayo
With barely six weeks to the kick-off of the 2024 Olympic Games scheduled for Paris, France, Nigerian weightlifters have intensified training.
Heritage Times HT reports that the duo of Lawal Rafiatu Folashade and Eze Joy Ọgbonne are Nigeria’s weightlifting flagbearers at the Olympics.
They qualified for the sporting fiesta following the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) May 2024 Olympic Qualification Rankings released last week.
Lawal, 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2023 Africa Games gold medalist qualified for the Olympics in the 59kg women’s category after she was ranked 8th with a total of 227kg.
Eze, 2023 Africa Games gold medalist, on her part, was ranked 9th in the 71kg women’s category with a total of 239kg.
Nigeria could have had three lifters at Paris but Edidiong Umoafia who won three gold medals at the African Games in Accra, had a total of 319kg in the 73kg men’s category was ranked 24th.
In the ranking released by IWF, only athletes who are ranked between 1 and 10 qualified for the Olympics.
Lawal and Eze will join the other Olympic athletes in Germany from first July, in continuation of their preparations before they fly into France for the Olympic Games.
Other Nigerian athletes including those of Wrestling, Athletics, Basketball, Football among others, are also preparing for the Games.
