After winning silver, Team Nigeria harvests near misses in Birmingham

…As Quadri suffers shock exit in singles event

Nigeria got off to a flying start on Tuesday with a silver medal won by Taiwo Laidi in the women’s weightlifting event but that was how far Team Nigeria could go as so many near misses by other athletes almost marred the early morning celebration.

Laidi had set a Junior Commonwealth Games Record, lifting a combined total weight of 216kg to clinch Silver in the women’s 76kg event to bring Nigeria medal haul to five.

Team Nigeria had won two gold and two silver medals between Saturday and Sunday in weightlifting.

Unfortunately, after Laidi’s heroics on Tuesday morning, Team Nigeria suffered a major setback later in the day as Africa’s number one and poster boy of Nigeria table tennis, Aruna Quadri, crashed out in the men’s singles event.

So much was expected from the 33-year old Quadri who recently hit an all-time high by breaking into the top 10 in the world but he got eliminated by 30 year-old Indian, Achanta Sharath Kamal, who defeated him 2-1 in the semis in Birmingham.

Although Achanta took the first set 11-9, Quadri fought back to claim the second 11-7 but the Indian dug deep to take the final set 15-13.

In the Men’s Table Tennis Team event, Nigeria finished 4th after suffering a 0-3 defeat to England.

Both Team Nigeria’s men and women will be back today to compete in the Singles Classes event.

In judo, Joy Asonye who defeated Fiji Shanice Takayawa in the women’s Repachange bout in the 70kg category was beaten in the evening by Kelly Peterson-Pollard of England in their bronze medal match.

In the men’s 67kg-71kg Light Middleweight category, Team Nigeria’s Abdul-Afeez Osoba lost his Round of 16 bout against Garan Croft.

The Welsh boxer defeated his Nigerian counterpart 5-0 (Win on points) to advance to the quarterfinals

However, it was not all gloom as Anabel Orobosa qualified for the final of the Women’s Shot Put.

The debutant finished 5th in Group B of the qualification rounds with a throw of 16.27m and put Nigeria in a medal position.

In athletics, Ezekiel Nathaniel qualified for the final of the 400m hurdles after he finished second in the first semi-final with a time of 50.38 seconds.

The trio of Grace Nwokocha, Rosemary Chuwkuma & Joy Udo Gabriel also advanced to the Semi-final of the Women’s 100M event.

Elsewhere, Esther Oshoba reached the quarter-final of the Women’s 54kg-57kg Featherweight boxing event after she defeated Erin Walsh from New Zealand.