Sunday Bada

Sunday Bada medal table
400-meter run , 4-by-400-meter relay
Nigeria
Olympic games
	2000 Sydney	4 x 400 meter relay

Sunday Bada (born June 22, 1969 in Kaduna , Nigeria , † December 12, 2011 in Lagos ) was a Nigerian sprinter who specialized in the 400 meters .

Career

He was active in the 1990s and won two gold medals in individual races:

• 1992 at the World Cup in Havana (44.99 s) and
• 1997 at the World Indoor Championships in Paris (45.51 s)

Sunday Bada took part in three Olympic Games.

As a single runner, however, he could not record any success. While he made it to the semi-finals in Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996 , he did not get past the quarter-finals in Sydney in 2000 . In return, however, he proved to be an important pillar of the Nigerian 4 x 400 meter relay , which twice reached the finals:

• 1992 in Barcelona: 5th place in 3: 01.71 min (the medal winners all ran under 3 minutes).

• 2000 in Sydney: First win of the silver medal in 2: 58.68 min (Team: Clement Chukwu . Jude Monye , Sunday Bada as 3rd runner and final runner Enefiok Udo-Obongy ) behind the USA (gold in 2: 56.35 min) and before Jamaica (bronze in 2: 58.78 min) In August 2008, the originally victorious US relay team was subsequently disqualified for a doping offense committed by its runner Antonio Pettigrew . Gold was officially awarded to the Nigerian relay team in July 2012. Bada became Olympic champion after his death.

In 1996 in Atlanta, the Nigerian season dropped out in the semifinals. The post-Olympic year 1997 turned out to be the year of his greatest triumph. At the World Indoor Championships in Paris in 1997, he won the title in the African indoor record time of 45.51 s, after having already won silver twice at the previous World Indoor Championships:

• Indoor World Championships 1997 in Paris: Gold in 45.51 s ahead of Briton Jamie Baulch (silver in 45.62 s) and Japanese Shunji Karube (bronze in 45.76 s)

• Indoor World Championships 1995 in Barcelona: Silver in 46.38 s behind the American Darnell Hall (gold in 46.17 s) and in front of the Russian Michail Vdovin (bronze in 46.65 s)

• Indoor World Championships 1993 in Toronto: Silver in 45.75 s behind the American Butch Reynolds (gold in 45.26 s) and in front of the Australian Darren Clark (bronze in 46.45 s)

At the World Indoor Championships in 1999 in Maebashi and 2001 in Lisbon , he was eliminated with 47.07 s and 48.18 s in the semi-finals.

He took part in outdoor world championships five times in a row, but could only reach the finals twice:

• World Championships 1993 in Stuttgart: 5th place in 45.11 s

• World Championships 1995 in Gothenburg: 8th place in 45.50 s and bronze as the final runner of the relay in 3: 03.18 minutes behind the USA and Jamaica, both of which remained under 3 minutes.

At the following World Championships, his performance curve steadily decreased: in 1997 in Athens he had to be 7th in the semi-finals (45.96 s), in Seville in 1999 as 5th in the quarterfinals (45.69 s) and in 2001 in Edmonton as 5th in the prelim (46.12 s) end the competition.

• At the African Championships, the counterpart to the European Championships, Sunday Bada only took part in 1990 in Cairo . He won two bronze medals:
  • 200 m in 21.05 s behind the Kenyan Joseph Gikonyo (gold in 20.89 s) and his compatriot Abdullahi Tetengi (silver in 21.01 s)
  • 400 m in 46.19 s behind the Kenyans Samson Kitur (gold in 45.15 s) and David Kitur (silver in 46.13 s)

• The Pan-African Games in 1991 in Cairo and 1995 in Harare , he won in 45.81 s and 45.03 s respectively the silver medal behind Samson Kitur (45.40 s and 44.36 s)

• In 1993 he finished 7th in the finals of the London Grand Prix in 45.28 seconds.

• In 1994 he won the bronze medal (45.45 s) at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria (Canada) behind the Kenyan Charles Gitonga and the British Du'aine Ladejo

Sunday Bada won a total of nine national championships:

• 1990 in 46.7 s
• 1991 in 46.19 p
• 1992 in 45.42 s
• 1993 in 45.03 s
• 1994 in 45.75 s
• 1995 in 44.69 s
• 1996 in 45.2 s
• 1997 in 44.89 s
• 2001 in 46.00 s

Personal bests

• Open air: 44.63 s, ran on August 16, 1993 in Stuttgart
• Halle: 45.51 s, ran on March 9, 1997 in Paris

Sunday Bada was 1.88 m tall and weighed 79 kg during his playing days.

death

Sunday Bada was found lifeless in Lagos on December 12, 2011. The cause of death is still unclear.

Web links

• Sunday Bada in the database of World Athletics (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tribute To The Late Sunday Bada Leadership, December 31, 2011
2. ↑ Team Nigeria awarded 4x400m Sydney Olympics gold ( Memento from August 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
3. ^ Sunday Bada died in Lagos at t-online.de, accessed on December 17, 2011