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| Ahmed and Chinenye |
The duo of Nigeria's Ahmed Owolabi Koleosho and Chinenye Obiora have made the eight-man
list that secured their places at the Paralympics Games,from the four Nigerian Athletes that took part at the Para Table Tennis African qualifying event of the Rio 2016 Paralympics Games.
However, Francis Chukwuemeka
who had earlier at the Morocco Open won two gold medals failed to make it while
Emmanuel Chinedu Nick was also unlucky to make the list.
From the eight athletes that
qualified, five of them were Egyptians, one South Africans while Obiora and
Koleosho completed the list.
To qualify, Obiora was unbeaten
in the women’s singles class 1-5 to emerge as winner ahead of players from
Morocco and South Africa while Koleosho caused an upset to book his place at
the Paralympics Games. He accounted for the
exit of Egypt’s Aly Mohamen Nasr, the top seed, in the final of Class 1-3
(11-8, 11-6, 11-7).
An excited Koleosho said “It
is great to win when I was the second seed in the competition, it is a great
step for me, I trained hard for this and I listened to every word my coach
said”, explained Koleosho. “I practice for about four hours per day, in the
final I was playing against a champion who is a very experienced player; I am
new to the game, I only started to play in 2013.”
The Nigerian admitted that the experience
he garnered during the Morocco Open aided his success at the African
Championship. " It is very big for me to
qualify for the Paralympics; playing in the Morocco Open has really helped me
improve. I lost to Welder Knaf from Brazil, he is very experienced but I
learned a great deal by playing against him”, added Koleosho. “After the match
he talked to me after little things which improved my game; before the
tournaments in Agadir, we prepared in Nigeria against many different players
with different styles, he concluded.”
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