Athletics: Peter Emelieze dumps Nigeria for Germany

One of Nigeria’s athletics success stories, Peter Emelieze has finally withdrawn his services to Nigeria for a ‘greener pasture” ahead of Rio Olympic Games.

Peter Emelieze successfully finalised his application for transfer of allegiance to Germany and will henceforth, divert his services to his newfound home.

The German-based sprinter runs for club side ASV cologne.

Emelieze officially became a German citizen in January 2016, and now possesses dual citizenship of both countries.

He ran the 60m at the German indoor athletics championships in February where he finished 3rd with a time of 6.69s.

Emelieze’s eligibility to compete for Germany took effect from April 23, 2016, meaning he will most likely represent the country at the Olympic Games in Rio.

Peter Emelieze reached the semi-finals of the 60m event at the 13th and 14th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha (2010) and Turkey (2012) representing Nigeria.

He represented Nigeria ‎at both the junior and senior levels in athletics.

In another development, Olajide Omotayo and Fatimo Bello have emerged winners in the qualifiers for the 2016 International Table Tennis Federation [ITTF] World Tour tagged Nigerian Open.

The competition featured over 106 male and 48 female players at the National Training Centre of the National Stadium in Lagos.

Omotayo, a former national junior champion, was unbeaten at the two-day tournament to lead the men’s event.

Meanwhile, Bello had to dig deep to defeat national junior champion, Tosin Oribamishe, in the final of the women event.

To win the men’s event, Omotayo was merciless in the final against an experienced Kazeem Makanjuola with a 4-0 bashing to emerge as the new national champion.

Major Discovery

The speed and skills of Omotayo were beyond Makanjuola in the entertaining encounter, as Bello had to rely on experience to defeat Oribamise in the women’s final.

Beside Omotayo and Makanjuola, others that made it to the top four in the men’s event were Oladele Kehinde and unknown Akanbi Rilwan.

In the women competition, Bello, Oribamise as well as Bose Odusanya and Nimota Aregbola completed the top four-finish.

The top four finishers have also secured their places at the 2016 ITTF Nigerian Open scheduled for May 18 to 22 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.

The referee of the tournament, John Peters, said that the players gave good account of themselves.

He identified Nimota Aregbesola as the major discovery after edging out the number one seed, Halimot Hussein in the quarterfinal as well as another top seed, Sidikat Yaya in the round of 16.

[Sportsmo]

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