Olympics: Adegoke qualifies as wind halts Okagbare’s record time
Enoch Adegoke and Blessing Okagbare won the 100m events at the Athletics Federation of Nigeria Olympics Trials in Lagos on Thursday, becoming Nigeria’s fastest men and woman, respectively.
Adegoke won the men’s 100m with a time of 10.00 seconds, beating Usheoritse Itsekiri and Okeoghene Brume, who finished second and third in 10.07 and 10.09 seconds, respectively.
After meeting the men’s 100m qualification mark of 10.05 seconds with his winning time, Adegoke qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
He is the 12th Nigerian athlete to qualify for the Olympics in track & field.
Okagbare had mixed feelings as her 10.63sec winning time was judged unlawful due to a 2.7m/s wind assist in the women’s 100m final.
Okagbare would have become the joint-fastest woman alive and the joint-second fastest woman in the world if the time had stood, equaling the mark established by Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on June 5 in Kingston, Jamaica.
The wind also stopped second-place Rosemary Chukwuma, who ran 11.07secs, from qualifying for the Olympics.
Grace Nwokocha, the gold medalist at the National Sports Festival, finished third in 11.11 seconds.
After the race, an ecstatic Okagbare said 2021 had been a watershed moment for her.
“It’s great to execute a race and run the time to know you are capable of running it. I have been doing this for five years in a row and this year has been different for me. I feel happy, I feel like Blessing Okagbare again and I just want to go out every time and do my best.
“I’m just happy at the time today, it boosted my confidence and I just hope this same thing happens at the Olympics,” Okagbare stated.
Adegoke also credited his Olympic qualification to the help he received from Sunday Dare, the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, who adopted him earlier this month.
“It’s very hard expressing my excitement, I’m very happy. I had to wait for this time; it’s been long that I have been praying for a time like this. Every competition, it’s always on my mind to run the qualification standard, but then, God’s time is always the best.
“My preparation has been awesome, we went on a training tour in the US and I had some exposure and I came back and followed my coach’s programme. Presently, we are in camp and the most important thing is for me now is that the sports minister adopted me like a month ago and the support had a very good effect on my performance because I had funds to prepare myself. Thinking less about money is very important in the life of an athlete,” Adegoke said.
