Accra 2026: Nigeria Eyes Early Gold Rush At African Senior Athletics Championships

The 24th African Senior Athletics Championships get underway today in Accra, Ghana, with Nigeria aiming to make a winning start as they bid to reclaim the top spot that has eluded them since they emerged overall best in Porto Novo, Benin Republic, in 2012.

On Tuesday, Nigeria will present athletes in two of the three finals scheduled for Day One, with Chukwuebuka Enekwechi seeking a historic fourth straight title win, while Amaechi Obiageri will be aiming to upgrade bronze in 2022 and silver in 2024 to gold in 2026.

Both Enekwechi and Obiageri arrive at the Championships as African leaders in their respective events, and both are favourites to win.

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A win for Enekwechi will make him the first man in Championships history to win the Shot Put title in four consecutive editions since 2018, while Obiageri will extend Nigeria’s dominance in the event since Chinwe Okoro stopped South African Elizna Naude from a fifth consecutive win in 2012. Nigeria may end the opening day on top of the table with two gold medals.

While Nigeria has dominated the two field events, the country is looking for redemption in two track events, which start on the opening day: the men’s and women’s 100m and 400m.

Nigeria has not been crowned champions of the blue-riband event since 2008 for men, when Olusoji Fasuba completed his historic hat-trick of wins, and Blessing Okagbare won her second 100m title in 2014 in Marrakech.

Favour Ashe will lead the Nigerian men in the event, seeking a change in status, but they do not look like favourites. Rosemary Chukwuma leads a strong women’s contingent that includes Miracle Ezechukwu and Maria Thompson Omokwe.

Chukwuma, the African leader in the event at 10.95 is the overwhelming favorite for the title.

The same scenario applies in the men’s full lap, where the team is seeking to end a 28-year wait, while the women’s shorter wait is just 12 years.

The last man to win the African Championships 400m gold for Nigeria was Clement Chukwu, who ran a then-Championship record 44.65 to win in Dakar, Senegal, in 1998.

Chidi Okezie will spearhead the team to rewrite that unwanted record, just as he did two years ago on the same track when he became the first Nigerian in 38 years to win the African Games 400m title after Innocent Egbunike in 1987. Okezie faces an uphill task, but ‘impossible is nothing’ as far as he is concerned.

For the women, veteran Patience Okon George leads from the front and will hope, perhaps for the last time, to upgrade the bronze medal she won 10 years ago to gold this time and become the second Nigerian woman in 12 years to be crowned African 400m champion after Folashade Abugan.

Tobi Amusan will also be in action on the opening day as she seeks a third 100m hurdles title. The World 100m hurdles record holder will begin the battle to reclaim the African Senior Athletics Championships sprint hurdles crown when the event gets underway at the on Tuesday evening. The Nigerian, winner of the event in 2018 and 2022, lost the title two years ago in Cameroon due to illness.

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The 29-year-old is hale and hearty and looks in great shape for the battle, where her greatest hurdle will be South African Marione Fourie, who tops the African list for the year at 12.67. Amusan is yet to run over the hurdles this year.

Amusan, who holds a 3-2 head-to-head record over the South African, has lost their last two encounters to Fourie, both at Wanda Diamond League meetings in China in 2025. She will be hoping to extend the record to 4-2 on her way to reclaiming the title and winning for the third time, a feat her compatriots Maria Usifo and Glory Alozie achieved in past editions.

Fourie, on the other hand, will be hoping for her first continental crown in the event after losing to the Nigerian in 2022 in Mauritius. There are four Africans led by Fourie who have gone under 13 seconds in the event this year, with Amusan yet to compete in the discipline.

Adaobi Tabugo is just outside with her 13.01 season’s best, while Janet Sunday is further off with her 13.67 effort.