23rd August, 2011
Nigerian sprinter, Blessing Okagbare, has declared that she won’t be at this year’s IAAF World Athletic Championship in Daegu, South Korea, for the fun of it.
The world tourney will hold in South Korea from 27 August to 4 September. Okagbare, who left for Daegu at the weekend believes she is going for the world tourney not to make numbers but to win laurels for the country.
“I have set a target of winning medals at the Daegu tourney. I have been preparing for this competition for a very long time and I cannot just disappoint the nation now,†said the Nigerian long and triple jumper and short sprinter.
Africa’s queen of track and Nigerian champion, Okagbare, at the inaugural Istvan Gyulai Memorial last month in Budapest, won the women’s Long Jump with a wind-assisted 6.84 metres (+2.9) leap.
Okagbare later came back to take third place in the 200m, clocking a season’s best 22.94 seconds behind Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown winner in 22.26 seconds and American Sanya Richards-Ross who was second in 22.63 seconds.
—Taiwo Adelu