2018 African Taekwondo Championships Fallout: Nigeria makes podium with two bronze medals

Binga wins best referee award

With just three athletes, Team Nigeria managed to make the podium with two bronze medals at the just concluded 2018 African Taekwondo Championships held in Agadir, Morocco.

It was Commonwealth Gold Medalist, Shola Olowookere, that claimed the first bronze medal in the men’s -68kg.

Being his first international outing since winning the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships in 2014, the 21-year old Olowookere defeated Ethiopia’s Musa Hassen 28 – 10 in the Round of 16, Cote D’Ivoire’s Peken Logbo 16 – 2 in the quarter-finals before losing to Niger Republic’s USA-based Ismael Yacouba 12 – 17 in the semi-finals.

Like Olowookere, 2015 African Games silver medalist, Chinazum Nwosu, won the second bronze medal in the women’s -53kg.

From the quarter-finals, the attack-minded Nwosu defeated her Rwandan opponent with superiority decision after their bout ended 3-3 in regular and extra time, but she narrowly lost 11 – 12 in the semi-finals to the tournament’s number one seed and world 8th ranked, Tunisia’s Ben Ali.

National Coach, John Victor cornered the athletes at the G-4 tournament.

Also, Nigeria Taekwondo Federation (NTF) President, Margaret Elizabeth Binga, was voted yet again as the “Best Female World Taekwondo International Referee” at the just concluded African Taekwondo Championships.

This remarkable achievement is coming on the heels of the Binga’s Officiating Performance at the Egypt International Open which held last month, and again cements her standing as the Nigeria’s number one Referee, in addition to being one of the top taekwondo referees in the world.

Binga, who is a former two-time African Champion, has been vocal about the plans of the Federation, under her leadership, to develop more International Referee in Nigeria. In addition to the national referee workshop conducted in December 2018, the NTF Calendar lists three more national referee workshops in 2018 in additional to an International Referee Workshop to be conducted at the end of 2018.

 

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