Onyekwere, Amaechi set to make history in Discus Throw

Nigerian duo of Chioma Onyekwere and Obiageri Pamela Amaechi will hoping to make history Tuesday when the Discus Throw final takes the centre stage on the opening day of the athletics event of the ongoing Commonwealth Games at the Alexander stadium in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Onyekwere, the reigning African champion and Amaechi, the 2022 Nigerian Discus throw queen will be seeking to become the first Nigerian women to make the podium in the event.

The two Nigerians are ranked second and fourth respectively in the line up of 11 women who will battle for the three medals on offer in the event.

Onyekwere’s 60.90m personal season’s best achieved in May is bettered only by the 61.78m England’s Jade Lally threw way back in January while Amaechi, who upstaged her bossom friend to win the Nigerian title last June barely a forthnight after losing to her at the African championships in Mauritius holds a personal season’s best of 58.10m which she threw to win at the Nigerian championships.

Vivian Chukwuemeka remains the only Nigerian to have thrown in the final of the event in 2002 and 2006.

Meanwhile, Orobosa Anabel Frank will be hoping for a miracle of sort when she makes her Commonwealth Games debut on Tuesday.

Orobosa is competing in the Shot Put event and has been drawn in group B of the qualifying round and will compete against Jamaica’s Danniel Thomas-Dodd who has thrown 19.53m and is ranked number eight in the world.

The Nigerian will also battle with New Zealand’s Maddison-Lee Wesche who is ranked ninth in the world with her 19.50m personal season’s best as well as the duo 18.06 Manpreet Kaur (18.06m) of India and Nigeria born Divine Oladipo of Canada (17.97m).

Orobosa, 27, is the reigning Nigeria Shot Put champion and holds a personal best of 17.21m which ranks her the 77th best in the world this year.

She will be seeking to become the sixth Nigerian woman after Edith Okoli (1958), Evelyn Okeke (1974), Tina Akowe (2002), Vivian Chukwuemeka (2002, 2006) and Nwanneka Okwelogu (2014) to get to the final of the event before hoping to become only the second Nigerian woman after Chukwuemeka to make it to the podium.