Blessing Okagbare
Blessing Okagbare
Main page
1478529

Blessing Okagbare

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Blessing Okagbare

Blessing Oghnewresem Okagbare-Otegheri (née Okagbare, born 9 October 1988) is a former Nigerian track and field athlete who specialized in long jump and sprints. She is an Olympic and World Championships medallist in the long jump and a world medalist in the 200 metres. Okagbare also holds the women's 100 metres Commonwealth Games record at 10.85 seconds.

Her 100 m best of 10.79 made her the African record holder for the event until it was eclipsed by Murielle Ahouré in 2016. On June 17, 2021, Okagbare ran a wind-aided 10.63 100 m. She was the African record holder over the 200 m with a time of 22.04 seconds in 2018, thus making her the second-fastest African female athlete over the distance behind Christine Mboma, who ran an African record of 21.78 s in 2021. Okagbare was the African 100 m and long jump champion in 2010. She has also won medals at the All-Africa Games, IAAF Continental Cup and World Relays.

In 2022 Okagbare was issued with an eleven-year competition ban backdated to July 2021 for multiple anti-doping rule violations.

Of Urhobo heritage, Okagbare was born in Sapele, Delta, in Nigeria. Given her athletic physique, teachers and family encouraged her to take up sports. Initially, she played football as a teenager at her high school and later, in 2004, she began to take an interest in track and field. She participated in several disciplines early on, competing in the long jump, triple jump and high jump events at the Nigerian school championships and winning a medal in each. On the senior national stage, she was a triple jump bronze medalist at the 2004 Nigerian National Sports Festival. Okagbare's 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.

In May 2007, at the All-Africa Games trials in Lagos, she established a Nigerian record of 14.13 meters in the triple jump. At the 2007 All-Africa Games she won the silver medal in the long jump and finished fourth in the triple jump. In the latter competition her Nigerian record was beaten by Chinonye Ohadugha, who jumped 14.21 meters.

As a 19-year-old, she won a silver medal in the women's long jump event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She was selected to compete at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics but did not start either the 100 m or long jump.

Okagbare 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 for the UTEP Miners that year. She won the Nigerian 100 m title in 2010, running a time of 11.04 seconds, and stated that she was opting out of the long jump in order to save herself for the upcoming African championships.

At the African Championships in 2010, she won gold in the long jump again with a distance of 6.62 m while her compatriot Comfort Onyali took silver. Okagbare also won gold in the 100 m distance with a run of 11.03 s flat, while Gabon's Ruddy Zang Milama and compatriot Oludamola Osayomi won silver and bronze with runs of 11.15 s and 11.22 s respectively. She won her third gold at the end of the championship as part of the Nigerian 4×100 m women's relay team. The team of Okagbare, Osayomi, Lawretta Ozoh and Agnes Osazuwa set a new championship record with a run of 43.43 s, more than a full second ahead of the silver-winning Cameroonian quartet.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.