The 32 year-old Commonwealth Champion is the first Nigerian
to reach the final of a wrestling event at the Olympics.
She achieved the feat after losing 4-1 to USA’s Tamyra
Stock-Mensah in the final on Tuesday.
She also won the first silver medal for Nigeria in the
ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Oborududu had qualified for the final after outwrestling
Elis Manolova of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan’s Meerim Zhumanazarova in the
preceding rounds.
In Athletics, Divine Oduduru couldn’t book a place in the
men’s 200 meters final after he finished third in the first heat with a
disappointing 20.16 seconds.
He was beaten to the automatic qualification spots by
Erriyon Knighton of the USA, who clocked 20.02 seconds, followed by Jamaica’s
Rasheed Dwyer, who took second with 20.13 seconds.
The Nigerian had to wait for the conclusion of the two other
heats before his fate was decided.
Unfortunately for Oduduru, Lyles Noah of the USA and
Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Jereem finished 19.99 and 20.10 respectively to
book the remaining spots in the finals.
In a similar development, Nigeria’s George Patience Okon
finished seventh in the first heat of round one of the women’s 400 meters race.
She clocked 52.41 seconds which wasn’t good enough to see
her progress in the competition.
In the same vein, Aminat Adeniyi was beaten by Iryna
Koliadenko of Ukraine in the preliminary stage of the women’s 62kg freestyle
wrestling event.
The 28-year-old Nigerian was leading 4-2 before the
Ukrainian pulled a surprise pinfall to upturn the game.