After going 14 years without a podium finish at the World Athletics Championships, Blessing Okagbare put Nigeria back on the world map as she bagged two medals in Moscow in 2013.
The track and field sensation made history as the first ever Nigerian to win two medals at the same World Championships, as well as the first athlete to claim medals in both sprint and field events, and at the same edition of the Championships too! She holds the record till date.
Going into the women’s Long Jump, she did not disappoint as she leaped 6.99m to place 2nd, just 2cm behind American jumper Brittney Reese. It was Nigeria’s first World Championship medal of any colour in seven attempts since 1999.
The Sprints queen went into the women’s 100m, qualifying for the final and managing a 6th place finish. But that was not all; she also got into final of the women’s 200m, matching Mary Onyali’s record of making the finals of both sprint events but this time, Okagbare got herself a Bronze after running 22.32s.
The women’s 4x400m relay team comprising of Patience Okon-George, Bukola Abogunloko, Omolara Omotosho and Regina George made it to the final, finishing 5th (3:27.57).
As the countdown to the 40th anniversary of the World Athletics Championships, along with the 2023 edition, set to hold in Budapest, Hungary, from August 19th to 27th, begins, we will highlight Nigeria’s medals won at the World Championships, which first started out as a quadrennial event, but became a biennial one after the third edition held in Tokyo in 1991. Nigeria has won a total of 11 medals: two of them in the relays and nine from individual events!
