25th May, 2012
Falilat Ogunkoya, former Nigerian quartermiller, who attended Mississippi state from 1987-1992 and graduated with a degree in Education, has disclosed in an interview that she never failed a dope test during her days on the tracks.
While speaking on a television programme recently she said took her training session seriously that she was always skeptical of going to the pharmacy to buy medication, whenever she was down with an ailment.
The former athlete was inducted to the Hall of fame in 1998 after she became the first person in school history to win an Olympic medal said “During my days I was very careful because I’m from a royal family so I was always mindful of whatever goes into my month because I know as an athlete I can be called upon anytime for test”.
In her collegiate years at MSU, she made All-American honors several times in the 100, 200 and 400 meters and she seized the interview to call on relevant authorities to work out modalities on sports can be incorporated into curriculum in Nigerian schools as it will go a long way in unearthing budding athletics talents.
Concluding she made a case for athletes that have represented the country in the past opining that what stops the Federal Government through the National Sports Commission, NSC and relevant authorities to pay old athletes the minimum wage.
She stated that there are so many athletes that won laurels for the country lavishing in abject and they need money for them to do some things but they are left to rot away.
Ogunkoya won a number of national championships, including a gold medal in 1996 in the 400 metres, gold in the 200 metres and 400 m in 1998, and gold again in 1999 and 2001 in the 400 m. At the 1987 All Africa Games in Kenya she won the silver medal in the 200 m. In 1995 at the Zimbabwe Games she won the silver in the 400 m, and at the 1999 Games in South Africa she won a gold medal in the 400 m.