Onyali leads Team Nigeria assault in sprint
By Morakinyo Abodunrin, Athens
Friday, August 20, 2004

Team Nigeria captain, Mary Onyali- Omagbemi, will lead the duo of Mercy Nku and Endurance Ojokolo as the country challenges again for a medal in the women's 100m. There is the other Nigerian interest in the shape of Oyepitan Abiodun, who would be gunning for glory with Team Great Britain.

Incidentally, there is little separating the quartet in terms of the time they've turned out this season.
Onyali, who is making a record fifth Olympics , has recorded a season's best of 11.48 secs. Nku recorded 11.24 with the duo of Ojokolo and Abiodun having 11.17 secs.
Nku, for instance, had boasted that the Athens Games is a perfect place for her to show that her exclusion during the last All Africa Games in Abuja where Onyali shone like the neon light, was not in good faith.

In the AFN/Mobil trials, however, Nku was beaten to the third position by Ojokolo in the absence of Onyali, who eventually got a wildcard for the Athens Games.
"We are going to settle things once and for all," Nku told Daily Sun sport on the eve of the Games. "That I'm going to the Olympics was ordained and I'm going to prove all my doubters wrong."
But former Olympian, Gloria Obajimi, has called for caution, insisting it would be wrong to start counting the chickens before the eggs are hatched.

"All things being equal,I expect our girls to run well in the 100m because they are all exposed, "Obajimi, who competed at the 1980 Games in Moscow told Daily Sunsport at the Halkida Lucy Hotel.
"Of course, the 100m event is always for the battle-hardened and our girls are old hands in the business. But it would be wrong to start saying who and who is going to win what! Athletics is based on visible performance, it's a long time now between the Mobil trials and the Olympics."