Peace Lekwot, 15, has the world at her feet. The lass, who had all eyes on her after an excellent performance at the Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF) World School Athletics Trial held at the Yaba College of Technology, won two gold medals for Kaduna State in a single day.
Despite the fact that it was her first visit to Lagos, the Faith Academy student overcame the odds to win the girls' long and high jumps, beating out competitors from 15 states who competed in the two-day championships.
Lekwot not only won two events, but she also shattered her personal best (PB) in each, to to the delight of Coach Felix Osiebe.
In the long jump event, Lekwot breasted 5.30m to erase her PB of 5.26m, while in the high jump she set a new PB of 1.50m to delete the former PB of 1.45m.
The excited teenager described her feat as reward for hard work. “When we were coming to Lagos, we missed our flight to Lagos on Monday because of vehicular traffic between Kaduna and Abuja. So, we had to reschedule our flight to midnight and we arrived at Lagos at 2.00 a.m. and had to sleep at the Lagos airport. We would have decided to forfeit the trip but we were determined to make it to Lagos.
“Despite the challenges, my coach encouraged me to give my best and when I saw the line up of athletes across the country, I summoned the courage to give my best which helped me to jump new PB in the two events.
“Athletics has been part of me since I was in primary school at Kingdom Heritage and it was after watching Ese Brume doing the country proud at the international stage that further ignited my passion for the sport. So my target is to become the best in Nigeria and in the world by exceeding the feat set by Brume,” she said.
Lekwot’s schoolmate, Daniel Emenike claimed the gold medal in the boys’ javelin event.
Apart from Lekwot, another shining star that lit up the event was Lukmon Adebayo of Lagos, who emerged champion in the 200m
16-year-old Adebayo ran 22.84 seconds to beat other competitors to the highest prize at the event, while the South West champion is also aiming for the 100m title.
Over 16 states, including FCT Abuja, featured 536 athletes from 202 schools in the championship, which served as a trial to select Nigeria’s contingent for the 2022 World School Athletics Championships holding later in the year.
Among the states that took part in the trial include host, Lagos, Ogun, Kaduna, Taraba, Bayelsa, Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti, Adamawa, Kogi, and others.
