#Sheros: Africa’s Fastest Woman Blessing Okagbare

It is no secret that Blessing Okagbare did millions of Nigerians and indeed Africans proud at the recently completed 2014 Commonwealth games in Glasgow. Blessing won gold at both 100 and 200 meter races and set the games record time of 10.85sec for the 100meter race. The first African woman to achieve such a feat.

On her successful performance she says

” Family, Friends and Fans:
The Commonwealth Games is now done and over with and it proved to be one of my best international showing ever. I came away with a Double Gold and Silver Medal. There are many more international competitions ahead for me in my career and so as you come along this journey with me I want to thank you all once again from the bottom of my heart for being there and the great support you have all shown to me during the Games. You have all been awesome ….God bless all of you and please keep me in your prayers as I continue on with my career”

A cursory look at Blessing’s career will reveal strong evidences of commitment, passion and determination. As we saw with our earlier post on Bolt this week, athlete training is NO JOKE and competing with champions like Shelly-Ann Fraser- Pryce, Carmelita Jetter and Veronica Cambell-Brown will require some stealth. However Blessing has shown that she is no quitter. After placing 8^th at the London 2012 Olympics, Blessing came back fighting to win silver and bronze in the long jump and 200 meter races at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. She also set a new African record of 10.79 s at the London 2013 Anniversary games beating reigning 100 m Olympic gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

Currently ranked in the Top 5 of all women sprinters in the world in the 100 and 200 meters and also the Long Jump she looks to put herself on the Map in the lead up to next year’s World Championships in Beijing, China and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.