10 Things You Didn’t Know About Blessing Okagbare

The Nigerian track and field athlete and Olympic and World Championships medallist in long jump, Blessing Okagbare was born on 9 October 1988 in Delta State, Nigeria. She also holds the Women’s 100 metres Commonwealth Games record for the fastest time at 10.85 seconds. She also won the gold medal in the 200, with a time of 22.25 seconds. In doing so, she became the fourth woman to win the 100m and 200m double at the Commonwealth Games. The exceptional 27-years-old athlete is definitely a name to be reckon with in the sports industry.

Here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about the Nigerian African record holder, Blessing Okagbare:

1. Blessing Okagbare was born on 9 October 1988 in Delta State, Nigeria.

2. She played football as a teenager at her high school and later, in 2004, she began to take an interest in track and field.

3. On the senior national stage, she was a triple jump bronze medallist at the 2004 Nigerian National Sports Festival.

4. Her first international outing came at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics, where she performed in the qualifying rounds of both the long and triple jump competitions.

5. In May 2007, at the All-Africa Games trials in Lagos, she established a Nigerian record of 14.13 metres in the triple jump.

6. As a 19-year-old, she won a bronze medal in the women’s long jump event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

7. She scored a 100 m/long jump double at the NCAA Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championship for University of Texas at El Paso, completing an undefeated collegiate streak that year.

8. She concluded her 2011 season by winning three medals at the All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique. She was part of the Nigerian quartet that won gold in the 4 × 100 m with a time of 43.34.

9. She made it through to the finals of the 100m and won with a time of 10.85, breaking the games record of 10.91 seconds set by Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie 12 years earlier at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

10. On July 27, 2013, at the London Anniversary Games, Okagbare set a new African record of 10.86 s in her 100 m race.