Blessing Okagbare Target Gold In Beijing

Last year was a memorable one both on and
off the track for the multi-talented Blessing
Okagbare. She capped off golds galore in
the Commonwealth Games and African
champs by tying the knot in her hometown. Now the
Nigerian wants to take on even more in 2015.
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You could forgive Blessing Okagabare for feeling a
tinge of regret on New Year’s Day.
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It is not that the outrageously gifted Nigerian should
approach 2015 with anything but optimism; it is just
that 2014 was such a memorable year for the
sprinter-jumper that it must have been hard to leave
it behind, and harder still to better.
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Going in to 2014, the powerful Okagbare had
recorded a series of blistering times but had
mystifyingly underperformed in major 100m finals.
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At London 2012, she set PBs on the way to winning
her heat (10.93) and semi-final (10.92). But when it
came to the final she could not back it up and placed
last.
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In the lead up to the Moscow 2013 World Championships she posted an African record 10.79 at the London Diamond League. Yet a time of 11.04 in the medal race in the Russian capital saw her finish a disappointing sixth. Although she found medal success in Moscow, winning silver in the long jump and bronze in the 200m, Okagbare addressed her weaknesses to avoid a repeat of falling short again in the 100m.
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“I needed to work on the first part of my race,” she
admits. “I don’t want to say I was a terrible starter but the first part of my race was very poor.”
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She did work on it, and boy did it work for her.
With no major global champs in 2014, her primary
goal was the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
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Sporting a shock of blonde hair under a grey Scottish
sky, she lit up the track to strike gold in a games
record, finishing 0.18 clear of Jamaica’s silver
medallist and former two-time world 100m champion Veronica Campbell-Brown.