Liu Juan of United States of America defeated Nigeria’s Olufunke Oshonaike in their preliminary round singles match at the 2020 Olympic Games on Saturday.
Liu, 36, scored a 4-1 win over Oshonaike, who is competing at her seventh Olympics.
Oshonaike put up a good fight in the first game going down 11-7 but was no match for her opponents in the second and third games losing 11-3 and 11-4.
The veteran Olympian took the fourth game 13-11, before Liu won the fifth game 11-4.
“I just lost, I’m supposed to be kind of sad, but I’m happy that we can be here at the Olympics. This is the spirit of the Games, you lose or win but we are all Olympians” Oshonaike told the Olympics channel after the match.
“Paris 2024? I’m going to be there, but as a spectator,”
Meanwhile in the Rowing event, Nigeria’s Esther Toko did not progress to the quarterfinals of the women’s Singles Sculls event, having finished 4th in heat 2 of the Repechage clocking a time of 9:07.54.
Toko needed to at least finish in the top 2 of her heat to get a passage to the quarterfinal round, but this would be a valuable experience for the young Nigerian Rower who is competing in her first Olympics, and should return for Paris 2024.
