Two of the country’s medal hopefuls, Blessing Okagbare and Grace Nwokocha will be taking to the tracks today in the women’s 100 metres as the Tokyo 2020 track & field events begin today.
Okagbare and Nwokocha are heading straight to the heats and will not be going through the rigours of competing in the preliminary rounds of the 100m.
Okagbare made her debut at the Olympics in Beijing 2008 Games where she won a silver medal in the women’s long jump. The 32-year-old has since been a permanent fixture at subsequent Olympic Games, getting to the 100m final at the London Games in 2012 but placed 8th.
Okagbare has been on fire since the start of the year and shortly after winning her eighth national title at the Yabatech Sports Complex, Lagos said she was looking forward to a glorious outing in Tokyo. For Nwokocha, the rave of the moment, Tokyo 2020 will be her first Olympics and she will be hopeful of making it a memorable one.
The 20-year-old came to the limelight at the start of the year, running two new personal bests while also winning the 100m title at the National Sports Festival in Benin City, Edo State. Her current PB and season best of 11.09s places her 81st in the world at the moment.
“My target for the Tokyo Olympic Games is to do better than what I have been doing by improving my time in the 100m and 200m,” said Nwokocha, who has a PB and season’s best of 22.79s in the 200m. Nwokocha will also take part in the 200m and 4x100m relays and hopes to make it a memorable maiden Olympics by appearing in the finals of all the events she will compete in.
Leave a Reply