Ace Nigerian quarter-miler, Patience Okon-George, of Rivers State smashed the women’s 400m record at the National Sports Festival on Monday, running a time of 51.60s to win the women’s title at the Gateway Games while Emmanuel Ojeli ran a new personal best of 45.58s to win the men’s title.
Okon-George, who was the clear favourite to win the title, finished well ahead of the rest of the field and shattered the festival record of 51.76s, which was set by Imaobong Nse Uko in Edo 2020.
Happy Rasheed of Rivers State snatched second place, while Lagos State’s Miracle Uwem finished third.
In the men’s final, the field was stacked with in-form stars but Ojeli, representing Rivers State came through for the gold medal in a new PB of 45.58s.
The sports festival is his first competitive race of the year and the Making of Champions product had seemingly been conserving his energy for the final, doing the bare minimum to qualify from the heats and the semi-final.
He won the keenly contested race ahead of Gafar Badmus (Ogun), who had run 45.65s in the semis, while Victor Sampson (Akwa Ibom) finished in third place.
‘I feel blessed and fulfilled to have won the race’, Ojele said after the race.
‘I ran a PB and for today, I wasn’t just going for the time, I was going for the win.
‘From now on, I’m moving to Europe to continue the season, put myself together and qualify for the World Championship’.
