Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Elizabeth to vie for Olympic Honours on July 26

Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Elizabeth to vie for Olympic Honours on July 26, 2021

By Niyi Busari

The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) earlier today confirmed the event line-up for each competition session of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, following their postponement to 2021 in the wake of the deadly covid-19 pandemic that brought the world to its knees.

The confirmed competition schedule of the Tokyo Olympics, which will now hold between 23 July and 8 August 2021, reveals no changes in the original venues planned for each sport.

The Taekwondo event, which will be held at the Makuhari Messe Hall, between 24 and 27 July 2021, will see 128 qualified athletes battle for 32 Olympic medals across eight Olympic categories, including male -58kg, -68kg, -80kg, +80kg and female -49kg, -57kg, -67kg, +67kg categories.

Nigeria’s Elizabeth Anyanacho secured the country’s sole ticket in the Taekwondo event and will be competing in the female -67kg category on Monday, 26th July 2021, alongside top athletes like world champion, Ruth Gbagbi of Cote D’Ivoire, Croatia’s Matea Jelic, Turkey’s Nur Tatar Askari, Great Britain’s Lauren Williams, China’s Mengyu Zhang and Paige Mc Pherson of USA.

Other athletes that have qualified in this category include Egypt’s Hedaya Malak and Tongo’s Malia Paseka, while the Covid-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the Asian and European qualification tournament which would produce the remaining six slots for the female -67kg Olympic taekwondo event.

21-year-old Elizabeth became the first woman in 16 years and second Nigeria woman ever to qualify for the Olympics in the Taekwondo event, a formidable feat for the Federal University of Technology Statistic undergraduate who only began competing in 2017.