Segun Toriola and Edem Offiong will be seeking to join other Nigerians who have qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic table tennis qualifiers in Khartoum, Sudan from February 16 to 18.
Six players each will represent Africa in the men’s and women’s singles events of the Games in Rio. Four each of these have qualified while the finalists in each of the singles events in Sudan will join them in Brazil.
Egypt’s Omar and Khalid Assar as well as Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri and Congo’s Jianan Wang have qualified for the men’s singles while Egypt’s Nadeen El Dawlatly and Dina Meshref along with Nigeria’s Funke Oshonaike and Congo’s Han Xing have booked their places in the women’s singles.
Toriola and Offiong face players from Ghana, Congo, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Benin and South Africa. Egypt will not feature in the qualifiers because they already have two qualified men and women each.
The duo failed to get their automatic qualifications when they lost in the quarterfinals of the singles events of the 2015 All Africa Games in Brazzaville, Congo.
Toriola, who led Nigeria to overcome Egypt to claim the men’s team title in Brazzaville, lost to Congo’s Wang while Offiong lost to Egypt’s Meshref in Brazzaville. Toriola is seeking to make history in Africa as the first athlete from the continent to feature in seven Olympics.
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