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FELIZ NAVIDAD: TWO OF A KIND NIGERIAN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALISTS, AJUNWA AND AMUNEKE MARK MILESTONE BIRTHDAYS

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA

Former Nigerian international footballer and currently a coach, Emmanuel Amuneke and Chioma Ajunwa, a police officer and former Nigerian Olympian are celebrating their milestone birthdays on this Christmas day.

Both important sports personalities who have identical credentials are 50 years old on the same day.

Apart from both hailing from Imo State in South East Nigeria, they were born on the same day, 25 December 1970.

Both were part of Nigeria football teams in Nigeria’s debut at World Cups. Ajunwa was in the Super Falcons at the inaugural Women’s World Cup in China, 1991.

Amuneke was in the Super Eagles at their debut World Cup outing in 1994 in the US.

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More significantly, both attended the same Olympic Games at Atlanta ’96 and were gold medallists.

While Ajunwa won an individual gold medal to become the first and only Nigerian individual gold medallist and also the first female gold medallist, Amuneke scored the back breaking goal that delivered gold to Nigeria’s football team.

Before then, he is famously known to have scored the two goals that earned Nigeria the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia.

Sports Village Square recalls that while Ajunwa is the first and only woman to compete in the FIFA Women’s World Cup as a footballer as well as the Olympic games doing track and field, Amuneke went on to be gold medallists as a coach at the Under 17 World Cup finals in 2013 and 2015.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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