It was a glorious night for Team Nigeria on Thursday at Hampden Park in Glasgow as TWO GOLD medals were won in Athletics in the space of 15 minutes of each other, first with Ese Brume claiming a brilliant GOLD medal in the Long Jump, and Blessing Okagbare taking to the track immediately after to complete a dominant Commonwealth sprint double, as she triumphed in the 200m in a time of 22.25s to add to the 100m title she won on Monday! Team England occupied the 2nd, 3rd and 4th as Jodie Williams, Bianca Williams and Anyika Onuora all set new PBs, with the Jamaicans surprisingly occupying three of the last four positions for a change:
Blessing started the 200m as the overwhelming championship favourite, going by her standing as the No.1 in the Commonwealth with a PB of 22.23s this season, as well as being the Diamond Race leader. She dominated the heats on with the fastest time (22.99s) and was phenomenal in the semi-final where she won comfortably in 22.43s – she looked in the kind of form that could possibly break the Games Record (22.20s) or even the African Record (22.07s). Though she was unable to get the Games Record as she did in the 100m, winning her first global titles in such dominant fashion has truly re-affirmed Blessing’s pedigree as a possible future World and Olympic Champion.
The future certainly looks bright for Blessing, who is still No. 3 on Nigeria’s all-time list for the 200 metres, behind Mary Onyali (22.07s) and Falilat Ogunkoya (22.22s). She will certainly have plenty of opportunities in the years to come to become Nigeria’s and Africa’s fastest ever over the 200m, and we can now look forward with excitement towards the 2015 World Championships and the 2016 Olympics. Okagbare’s existing and emerging rivalries are set to make the women’s sprints a tantalising prospect over the next two years – will Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce rediscover the form that saw her win the sprint double at the World Championships last year? Will USA’s Tori Bowie, the fastest woman in the world this year in both sprints continue her phenomenal progression, having only just recently switched from the Long Jump? Exciting times lay ahead!
On Friday and Saturday, Blessing will most likely return to the track as part of Nigeria’s 4×100 team, in a quest to grab Team Nigeria’s first global sprint relay medal since the Beijing ’08 Olympics! A quartet which included Okagbare and Gloria Asumnu came within a hundredth of a second of winning a Bronze medal at the inaugural World Relays in the Bahamas in May, and they will be looking to go at least one better at these Games! Can she lead Team Nigeria to another medal before the week runs out? We won’t have long to find out!
Blessing is truely a blessing to nigeria; atleast, she has giving us course to celebrate in this trying time for our country.
Thumb-up to other athletes making us proud. More grease to your elbows; we love and appreciate you Thumb-up to other athletes making us proud. More grease to your elbows; we love and appreciate you Thumb-up to other athletes making us proud. More grease to your elbows; we love and appreciate you Thumb-up to other athletes making us proud. More grease to your elbows; we love and appreciate you all!
yes – we certainly do love and appreciate Blessing and all the other athletes doing Nigeria proud – can’t say it enough! 🙂