Nigeria’s Esther Toko could only qualify for the repechage stage of the women’s single sculls event in the rowing competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games on Friday.
Toko who was on lane five of the six-woman heat one of the event’s opening round at Sea Forest Waterway could only finish fifth in eight minutes 58.49 seconds.
The 21-year-old was 1:08.78 behind fourth-placed Alejandra Alonso of Paraguay (8:11.88) and 2:28.56 ahead of Esraa Khogali of Sudan (10:18.27).
But all three rowers could only qualify for the classification series, after the first three rowers in the heat had clinched the tickets to the quarter-finals from their heat.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Kara Kohler of the U.S won the heat in a time of 7:49.71.
Tatsiana Klimovich of Belarus (7:51.86) and Nazanin Malaei (7:59.01) of Iran joined her in heading to the last eight.
Toko will now take part in Saturday’s repechage 2 at the same venue.(NAN)