Blessing Okagbare demonstrated complete dominance of both the Long Jump and 200 metre fields in the 2nd leg of this year’s Diamond League, which took place earlier today (Sunday) in Shanghai. She won the Long Jump with her very first jump, in a new Meeting Record (MR) of 6.86 metres. She proceeded to only take 3 of her 6 allotted jumps, to conserve her energy for the 200 metres a couple of hours later, which she won comfortably in yet another MR of 22.36s, just 0.05s off her personal best in the event!
One could say that Okagbare has come of age with these TWO dominant displays of her raw power and speed. One might recall that in the World Championships last year, she took all 6 jumps while winning the Silver medal in the Long Jump, but was not able to recover well for the 100 metres semi-finals and finals the following day, where she finished in a disappointing (by her standards) 6th place. It would seem that not only is she getting stronger, with TWO commanding victories on the same night, but she is also competing smarter, by forfeiting her final 3 jumps in the Long Jump, so that she had enough left in the tank for the 200m. She had reportedly planned a similar strategy at the World Championships, but one can imagine that when a World Title was on the line and she was in the Silver medal position, she would undoubtedly have been compelled to take every single jump in attempting to win the GOLD (she missed out on it by 1 centimetre to USA’s Brittany Reese)!
Unfortunately, Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce pulled out of the 200m race in Shanghai at the last minute, so we were denied another head-to-head between these two great athletes. This year’s Diamond League is shaping up to be an extremely tasty prospect for Blessing Okagbare, the world’s busiest athlete on the Diamond League circuit, as she attempts to win the Diamond League race for THREE different events: 100m, 200m & Long Jump! With these wins today, she is already top of the 200m & Long Jump leaders’ boards with 4 points each, and she is currently 2nd in the 100m behind Fraser-Pryce, with 2 points! One thing is for certain, both Chioma Ajunwa’s African Long Jump Record (7.12 metres) and Mary Onyali’s African 200m Record (22.07s) are under serious threat from Blessing – can she break one or both of them this season? She already took Glory Alozie’s 100m African Record last year, with 10.86s and 10.79s runs at the London Anniversary Games!
Nigeria’s Regina George, could only manage 8th place in 51.39s, in a stacked women’s 400 metre race which was won by Jamaica’s Novlene Williams-Mills in 50.31s. Considering that all the other athletes in the field have significantly better PBs than George, this should not be viewed as a disappointment for her. This season is still early, and if she can get close to and beyond her PB of 50.84s, she’ll be back in the mix in future races! Let’s hope that she can re-produce the form that she has shown as a 4x400m Relay runner, with anchor leg splits of 50.5s for Nigeria at the Penn Relays last month, and a sub-50 second split in the Semi-Finals of the World Championships last year.
Be sure to follow @MakingOfChamps on Twitter and like facebook.com/makingofchamps for all your Diamond League updates this season, including TV schedules, live twitter & facebook updates, with a special focus on athletes representing Nigeria!
2014 IAAF Diamond League calendar
Doha, QAT – 9 May
Shanghai, CHN – 18 May
Eugene, USA – 31 May
Rome, ITA – 5 Jun
Oslo, NOR – 11 Jun
New York, USA – 14 Jun
Lausanne, SUI – 3 Jul
Paris, FRA – 5 Jul
Glasgow, GBR – 11-12 Jul
Monaco, MON – 18 Jul
Stockholm, SWE – 21 Aug
Birmingham, GBR – 24 Aug
Zurich, SUI – 28 Aug
Brussels, BEL – 5 Sep
