A 14-year-old from Nigeria’s Plateau State emerged champion at this year’s edition of the Lagos Women Run on Saturday.
While Maisaje Vera-Yohanna won the Open race, another Plateau State athlete, Elizabeth Nuhu, claimed the top prize in the veterans’ category.
For the Open Category, Vera-Yohanna finished the 10km race in a time of 29.38.72 to emerge the winner. Lagos State’s Haruna Hauwawu came a close second as she also broke the half-hour mark with a finish time of 29.27.59, while Delta State’s Charity Agofure was third with a time of 30.13.17.
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Despite the star-studded list of elite athletes on parade, Vera-Yohanna, a teenager, held sway right from the start point at the Onikan Roundabout and though she was intermittently overtaken at different times, she had enough firepower in her to breast the tape first at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena Finish point.
Speaking to journalists after her triumph at the Lagos Women Run, Vera-Yohanna said she is excited about winning the prestigious race, having put in so much hard work in the past months. “I am very happy to win the Lagos Women Run. I have been training hard for this race and I am happy that God gave me the victory,” she said.
Though Yohanna’s winning time falls short of the Course Record of 28: 55 secs set in 2019 by Kenyan’s Cheptoeck Careen, it remains the fastest-ever winning time by a Nigerian at the Lagos Women Run.
While three states (Plateau, Lagos, and Delta State) shared the top three positions in the Open Category, the Plateau State trio of Elizabeth Nuhu, Steven Kundung, and Janet Dung claimed a clean sweep in the Veteran Category.
For their efforts in the Open Category, Vera-Yohanna, Hauwawu, and Agofure got N1 Million, N500,000, and N300,000 respectively. In the Veteran category, the top three finishers were rewarded with N300,000, N200,000, and N100,000, respectively. They also gave other cash prizes to runners who finished within the first 10 in both the Open and Veteran Categories.
Tayo Popoola, Coordinator for the Lagos Women Run, thanked everyone for making the seventh edition of the 10km race glamorous, even as she promised more innovations to make the next edition in 2023 even better. A record 25,000 runners registered for the 2022 edition of the Lagos Women Run.
