August 05, (THEWILL) – After the furore caused by the viral video of Nigeria’s shot put finalist Chukwuebuka Enekwechi laundering his own jersey in preparation for the final of his event, the athlete threw a disappointing distance of 19.74 metres, far below his throwing capacity, to finish 12th at the Summer Games in Tokyo, Japan.
It was not immediately clear what may have been responsible for Enekwechi to throw so disappointingly short of even his qualifying distance. As THEWILL reported, the 28-year-old qualified for the final by whipping the ball as far as 21.16m, earning himself a shot at doing better in the final.
The expectation was that he was going to be improving on the results that have brought him to reckoning in the past. He finished behind the 22.45m distance Thomas Walsh of New Zealand threw at the 2018 Commonwealth Games with his distance of 20.66 earning him the silver for Nigeria.
Then, at the men’s shot put event at the 2019 African Games held on 27 August in Rabat, Morocco, the Nigerian-American shotputter outclassed the competing field when he threw his ball over a 21.28m distance to finish ahead of the silver and bronze pair of Egyptians Mohamed Ibrahim Khalifa, 20.85m, and Mostafa Amr Hassan, 20.74m.
Above all these, Enekwechi kept up his progress when he broke ground to a huge Personal Best of 21.77m, to stun contending favourites to win the shot put event at the 2019 IAAF World Challenge in Braganca Paulista. It became the new Nigerian record as it overtook Stephen Mozia’s throw in 2016 by one centimetre.
Enekwechi only got better as he extended his National Record to 21.80m at the Cercle Athletique Schifflange Meeting in Schifflange, a commune in Luxembourg. That throw brought him only 17cm short of the 2001 African record set by Janus Robert the South African.
By throwing short, the Nigerian failed to stamp his authority on the field and his 12th place finish was a wash off when placed side by side with Ryan Crouser of the U.S. who set a new Olympic record in the event with a throw of 23.30m.
Although Crouser is also the world record-holder with 23.37m, which he set in three years ago, the shot putter erased his own Olympic record of 22.52m set at the Rio Games in 2016 showing marked improvement of his own.
Fellow American shot putter, Joe Kovacs, took the silver medal with a throw distance of 22.65m while Tomas Walsh of New Zealand, who finished ahead of Enekwechi at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, won the bronze with a season best 22.47m.
Obviously, some of the time he could have spent making preparations to be ready in mind and body was given to washing the ‘only’ jersey provided him by the Nigerian officials for the competition as he revealed in a video shared via his TikTok account @thechuksays, which caused a backlash against the Nigerian government on Wednesday.
Yet, the throw of 19.74 metres fell far below expectation for a 12-time All-American, five-time NCAA medalist, and four-time Big Ten champion at Purdue.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
