Last week, we featured Part 1 of our annual series on the Top 12 Nigerian Athletes of the year. We will continue our countdown in Part 2 of the series where we highlight the achievements of the athletes that made it to the Top 6 on our shortlist. Here’s Nos. 6 to 1.
- Yinka Ajayi
What a year 2017 has been for Yinka Ajayi! Setting several Personal Bests (PB) and making her maiden appearance at the World Championships, she couldn’t have asked for more.
Ajayi enjoyed a lustrous campaign this year, kick-starting her season at the TAFCAN Trials in Lagos where she dominated the field to win the 250m and 450m, warming her up for bigger things in her trademark event – the 400m, heading into the season proper.
The Durban 2016 Silver medalist was one of the marquee names for Nigeria at the 4th edition of the Islamic Solidarity Games in May where she set a new PB of 52.10s in the heats to become the first Nigerian quartermiler to qualify for the World Championships. She carted away a Bronze medal in the 400m with 52.57s, and claimed Silver in the 4x400m alongside Glory Nathaniel, Rita Ossai and Folasade Abugan.
Ajayi continued her impeccable performance as she raced to a new PB of 51.59s while competing at the AFN/Dynamic Sporting Solutions meet in June, then finished 2nd just behind Patience Okon-George at the All Nigeria Championships in July.
One of the highlights of Ajayi’s season came a few days later at the Warri Relays/CAA Grand Prix as she raced to victory in the 400m, further lowering her PB to a time of 51.30s.
At the World Championships, Ajayi defied all odds to qualify to the semi-final of the 400m despite arriving in London just a day before her race. Running from the dreaded outside lane at the London Olympic Stadium and competing alongside other accomplished athletes like Shaunae Miller-Uibo, she was still able to sail through to the next round. However, she didn’t advance to the final.
Coupled with her individual exploits at the World Champs, Ajayi anchored Nigeria’s 4x400m team to a 5th place finish at the World Championships.
- Patience Okon-George
Patience Okon-George is Nigeria’s best female quarter-miler at the moment. Yes, she has got competitors for that mantle – in fact many of them, but she still has a way of excelling among the lot.
This year wasn’t all that different from 2016 where she picked up a Bronze medal at the African Championships, as well as qualifying for the Rio Olympic Games. She, however, was still able to maintain her dominance on home soil in the one-lap event, while also proving to be part of the top guns when it comes to the quarter-mile event on the African Continent.
Her campaign this year saw her trotting the globe as she competed in Africa, Europe and the Caribbeans while churning out decent times in her quest to be at the World Championships, from the Granada Invitational where she won the competition with a Season’s Best (SB) of 52.26s, to Nassau in the Bahamas where she finished 5th and 7th respectively as a member of the 4x200m and 4x400m teams at the 2017 IAAF World Relays.
It was also a cake walk for Okon-George at the Nigerian Championships as she hit the entry standard of the World Championships after running an SB of 51.34s to win Heat 2 of the women’s 400m, before clinching her third consecutive 400m title with a new SB of 51.07s.
The 2016 multiple African Championships medalist then competed in the 200m at the Warri Grand Prix where she clocked a PB of 23.49s.
Okon-George competed in the heats and semis of the 400m at her second outing at the World Championships, finishing 7th in her semi final race in a time of 52.60s. She also was part of Nigeria’s 4x400m team that finished 5th in London.
- Blessing Okagbare
Very few Nigerian athletes have cut a consistent figure on the global stage than Blessing Okagbare. Even though the Sapele-born athlete entered the Guinness Book of Records in 2016 as the athlete with the most Diamond League appearances, she kept a somewhat low profile in 2017 in a bid to regain her fitness ahead of the World Championships.
While juxtaposing competing in the Long Jump and Sprints in major meets this season, the Moscow 2013 double medalist was able to exorcise some of the demons of 2016, having struggled with injury for the greater part of the season. That notwithstanding, she was able to meet the World Championships qualifying standards in the 100m, 200m and Long Jump without fuss.
The Beijing 2008 Silver medalist opened her season with the 200m, winning a meet in Texas with 22.87s. She competed in the Oslo Diamond League where she finished 7th with a distance of 6.48m in the Long Jump, but enjoyed a better outing at Székesfehérvár in July where she was 2nd with an SB of 6.77m.
Okagbare also set a Season’s Best (SB) of 10.99s in the 100m at the Diamond League in London, which was her only sub-10s run this season. She competed in the 100m and Long Jump at the World Championships, coming 2nd in her heat with 11.22s, then bettering her time to 11.08s in the semis where she placed 4th, narrowly missing a place in the final.
She qualified for the final of the Long Jump after leaping to a mark of 6.51m to finish 2nd in the qualification round. However, she was only able to settle for 8th position in the final with a leap of 6.55m.
A few weeks after the World Championships, Okagbare was the woman to beat at the IAAF World Challenge in Zagreb, Croatia, where she ran a time of 11.14s to finish ahead of Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith and Trinidad and Tobago’s Michelle-Lee Ahye. She also clinched 3rd position in the 100m at the IAAF Diamond league finals in Brussels in a time of 11.07s, finishing behind Elaine Thompson and her African rival Marie Josée Ta-Lou.
To cap off an inspiring season, Okagbare got inducted into University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) Sports Hall of Fame in October.
- Women’s 4x400m
Hardly does a major Athletics tournament go down without the Nigerian women’s 4x400m team winning a medal or coming within the cusp of winning one.
It is therefore only fitting that the team makes our Top 6 list, after already including two individual quarter-milers that excelled this year.
The team’s first competition this year was the IAAF World Relays in the Bahamas where Nigeria was represented by a lean team, and so the athletes were stretched beyond limit. For instance, Patience Okon-George had to compete in the 4x100m, 4x200m and 4x400m!
Nevertheless, the 4x400m team won their heat. However, due to undue stress, they finished 7th in the final to secure their place as one of the automatic qualifiers for the London World Championships.
In London, the quartet of Okon-George, Glory Nathaniel, Emerald Egwim and Yinka Ajayi ran with so much vigour to storm to a Season’s Best (SB) of 3:25.40 in the semi-finals of the World Championships, the fastest they have run since the Commonwealth Games in 2014 where they posted a time of 3:24.71.
It is also worth noting that the team had the 4th overall best performance in the semis, just behind the Americans, Jamaicans and Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
With hindsight being 20/20, the coaches replaced Egwim with Abike Egbeniyi, who arrived a day before the final due to no fault of hers, to join up with the trio of Okon-George, Nathaniel and Ajayi. However, the move backfired, with Nigeria eventually finishing 5th in the final in 3:76.22.
- Glory Nathaniel
Taking our No. 2 spot is Glory Onome Nathaniel. She is the older sister to Samson Nathaniel (who took our No. 10 spot in this countdown). The two made history by being the first male and female siblings to represent Nigeria at a World Championships.
Nathaniel is quite adept in both the 400m and 400m Hurdles, and opened her season at the 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games where she won her 400m Hurdles heat in 57.05s, before storming to a Silver medal behind Kemi Adekoya, setting a Personal Best (PB) of 55.90s to qualify for her first World Championships.
Competing in her first major senior event, the 2015 African Junior Championship Bronze medalist put up an outstanding performance, lowering her PB in the 400m Hurdles. The feat came about as she ran in Lane 2 in the final heat of the women’s 400m Hurdles. Nathaniel had a blistering start as she led the pack up until around the home straight.
She began to tire as the likes of Rhonda Whyte of Jamaica and Lea Sprunger of Switzerland caught up with her, but she held on to finish 3rd with a new PB of 55.30s, qualifying for the semis, although she was eventually disqualified for an infringement.
She also competed in the women’s 4x400m semis and final, running the second and third legs respectively.
- Tobi Amusan
Taking our No.1 spot as the Top Nigerian athlete of the year is the current rave of the moment of Nigerian Athletics, Tobi Amusan.
As a fledgling in 2015, Amusan announced her name to the Athletics world when she claimed the 100m Hurdles titles at the African Junior Championships and the All-Africa Games, which also served as a spring board to greater things in her career.
From breaking her school’s 100m Hurdles and 200m records, to becoming the NCAA Champion in 2017, Amusan attained lofty heights even professional athletes would dream of.
Amusan kick-started her season at the Don Kirby Invitational in February where she smashed her Personal Best (PB) in the 60m Hurdles, setting a new time of 7.98s in the semis to tie the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) Record set by Janice Jackson in 2014.
She then competed at the Kidd Field meet in El Paso, Texas, where she ran a then World Leading (WL) time of 12.63s, before setting a new Meet Record of 12.72s at the 90th Clyde Littlefield Meet in Texas.
Her next stop was in Austin, Texas, where she went on to run a wind-aided time of 12.57s to win the race. However, Amusan was not detered as only a couple of days later, she posted the same time in the final of the NCAA Championships, only that it was within the legal wind limit, inspiring all eight finalists to run under 13s.
It was also a new Personal Best (PB) for her, and the second fastest time posted by an African in the event, asides Glory Alozie’s African Record of 12.44s. Amusan also clocked a PB and UTEP 200m Record of 22.92s, breaking fellow Nigerian Blessing Okagbare’s former record in the event. The time also surpassed the World Championships entry standard.
Going into her first World Championships, Amusan was certainly one of the favorites to get to the final as her 12.57s run was ranked in the Top 10. However, she seemed to struggle with her momentum and had to come from behind to finish 3rd in 12.97s in the heats. The Nigerian then placed 4th in the semis with her time of 13.04s, missing out on a place in the final.
Amusan may not have achieved her target of getting to the World Championships final, but she is certainly one to watch out for at next year’s Commonwealth Games and African Championships.
