By George Aluo
Team Nigeria continued her top flight performance at the on going Rio 2016 Paralympics as her athletes last night won gold and silver in Power-lifting.
Josephine Orji, set the ball rolling with her golden effort, only for Latifat Tijani to follow with a silver.
Orji shattered the World record with a lift of 160kg to win the gold medal in the Women’s -84kg Power-lifting event.
The Nigerian had an impeccable performance as she established a wide gap to her closest challengers. Poland’s Marzena Zieba finished second with a lift of 134kg while Netherlands’ Melaica Tuinfort took bronze lifting her best mark of 130kg.
The latest gold medal is Nigeria’s 8th at the event. Nigeria now has 11 medals and 10th on the overall medals table.
Peoples Republic of China is on top of the medals table with 67 gold medals, while Great Britain and Ukraine are second and third with 39 and 28 gold medals respectively. United States is placing a distant fourth with 22 gold medals. The Paralympic Games is billed to come to a close on Sunday at the famous Maracana Stadium.
Organisers had already given a pat on the back to the Brazilian public for throwing their weight behind the Games with their large turn out to cheer the athletes at the different venues.
