Okagbare Settles For Silver -As Ogba Celebrates IAAF Award -George, Omolara Fail In 400m -Usain Bolt Confirms Superiority BY OKE OLUKU Nigeria’s queen of track and Africa 100m record holder, Blessing Okagbare on day 2 on Sunday of the ongoing IAAF World Athletics Championship taking place in Moscow, Russia, won the silver medal in the women long jump event behind current Olympic and World champion, Brittney Reese of the USA who leaped 7.01m in her second attempt to win the gold medal. It would be recalled that during the IAAF Diamond League in Switzerland, Okagbare leaped a distance of 7.00m to defeat Reese, but the Nigeerian hope this time out leapt 6.99m in her fifth attempt to win the silver while the bronze went to Ivana Spanovic of Serbia who did 6.82m in her fifth attempt. Okagbare’s effort came 48 hours after her mentor, Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) president, Evangelist Solomon Ogba had been honoured as one of 18 track and field gurus from across the world with the IAAF’s veteran pin award, at the end of the global body’s congress in Moscow. However, Okagbare’s hope of joining Ogba on the podium of top glory at Moscow 2013 fell short when she could not scale ahead of Reese, as the Beijing Olympics bronze medalist recorded 89, 6.58, 6.68, 6.80, 6.99 and 6.96m. This fell just a little behind Reese’s 6.50, 7.01 and 6.95m in three attempts, while her third, fourth and sixth efforts were ruled out as no jumps. Nonetheless, Okagbare will now turn her full attention towards the women’s 100m, in which she called the first stage by cruising on in the heats yesterday. In the male 100m class, current Olympic champion, Usai Bolt who missed out in the final of the 2011 IAAF World Championship in Deagu when he beat the gun, confirmed his superiority on the track yesterday, as he won the gold medal. On her part, Okagbare will now concentrate today on leading out Gloria Asumnu and Stephanie Kalu in the women 100m semi-finals, while also expressing optimism ahead of today’s 100m semi-final, though she is not making any prediction. Same evening in Moscow, two other Nigerian women, Regina George and Omotoso Omolara could not make it to the final of the 400m event as both crashed out during the heat. Running in heat 1 of the 400m event with a personal best of 50.84secs, George could only manage the 3rd position thereby knocking her out of the finals, while Omolara in heat 3 came 7th with 52.38secs. It was a different case for Asumnu, who qualified after taking third position with 11.27secs, the race was won by favorite, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica (11.15secs) in heat 4 of the race on Sunday morning. Okagbare expressed hope for better tidings today, when asked how she feel ending Team Nigeria’s drought at the championship, which goes back to Seville ’99 in Spain, where Gloria Alozie won silver in the 100m hurdles and Francis Obikwelu a bronze in the 200m. Okagbare said: “I give glory to almighty God, I thank him for everything, I also thank him for using me because he could have used anybody, I also thank all members of my family, friends and relations for their support.”
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:53:54 +0000
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