BY Idris Shehu
Flora Ugwunwa has won gold for Nigeria in the women’s F54 javelin event at the Tokyo Paralympics.
The 37-year-old retained her Paralympic crown with a sensational 19.39 meters throw to register a new season-best on Friday.
She was the only contender to go beyond 19-metre mark and wasn’t pushed to better the 20.25m that won her gold in Rio 2016.
Uzbekistan’s Nurkhon Kurbanova took the silver medal as Yang Liwan of China finished with bronze.
Ugwunwa’s victory is Nigeria’s fourth gold at the Games which has been a rush of medals for the country.
In a similar development, Lauritta Onye, who was included in TheCable’s list of Nigeria’s medal prospects at the Games, won bronze in the women’s F40 shot put event.
She fell short of retaining her gold medal from Rio, settling for a season-best throw of 8.29 meters to finish behind Poland’s Renata Sliwinska and Tunisia’s Nourhein Belhaj.
With the two laurels, Nigeria finished Tokyo Paralympics with 10 medals from three events. Powerlifting accounted for six — three gold, one silver and two bronze. Athletics brought the second-largest haul — one gold and two bronze; while table tennis added just a bronze medal.
The overall medal haul is just two short of Nigeria’s record set in Rio 2016 where the country made the podium 12 times.
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