African Voices Changemakers sponsored by Globacom on the Cable News Network (CNN) will, this week, feature two sportsmen from the continent who are making positive impacts in athletics.
Viewers will be treated to the trajectories of the duo of Nigerian Olympic medal hopeful, Uche Eke, and Ugandan serial world record holder in athletics, Joshua Cheptegei, who are guests on the half-hour magazine programme.
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Eke, 23, is a Computer Engineering graduate of the University of Michigan, United States of America, and Nigeria’s only decorated gymnast.
Eke believes gymnastics is a sport that helps youths to build character, attitudes and habits that can have a positive influence on their future.
He, therefore, encourages them to key into the game.
Eke will become Nigeria’s first Olympic gymnast, having qualified for this year’s Olympic Games in Japan.
Earlier, at the 2019 All-African Games in Rabat, Morocco, he won Nigeria’s first-ever gold medal on pommel horse and a bronze medal on parallel bars.
The second guest, Cheptegei, was born in 1997.
He runs the Cheptegei Development Foundation which develops and trains Ugandan Under-16 kids in the field of athletics, thus preparing them for a future in the track and field profession.
A member of the Ugandan National Police, Cheptegei, is a world athletics champion.
He won a silver medal in the 10,000 meters event at the World Championship in London in 2017, followed by the world record for the 15 km road race in 2019, thus becoming the cross-country world champion.
He also added a 10km road race in Valencia, Spain.
In 2020, Cheptegei also set a world record as the tenth man in history to hold two world records concurrently in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters.
Eke and Cheptegei will talk about their ambitions and accomplishments on African Voices Changemakers which airs on Saturday at 9.30 am. Repeats of the programme come up on Sunday at 4.30 am, 7.30 am, 12.30 pm and 7.30 pm; on Monday at 4 am and in two 15-minute parts on Tuesday at 6.45 pm and on Wednesday at 6.45 pm.
