Nigeria’s Paralympic Games female gold medalist and para-powerlifting world record holder, Josephine Precious Orji has reflected on the years of her glorious surge into global limelight with the country’s contingent and recalled the day she felt like walking in order to celebrate another heroic feat, megasportsarena.com reports.
Taking her mind back to how it all began for her and the strides she has been able to take in the course of her career strides despite her disability, Orji recounted how her life changed in 2001 when she visited a gym in her hometown, Owerri, to try out powerlifting for the first time ever and then walked away from her job the next day because she was determined to succeed in her new-found passion.
She had been working as a computer operator in a busy cyber-cafe, a job she says she was good at, enjoyed and was a popular member of the staff; but she had found a new career that would eventually see her achieve the heights she was so determined to reach, the highlight of which so far was winning gold at the 2016 Paralympics with a world record that has not been beaten.
It was a defining moment for the 41-year-old athlete, who lost the use of her legs following a bout of polio as a child, and her progression after that first tentative step in 2001 took her to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil five years later for the 2016 Paralympic Games, where she competed in one of the final events.
Dramatically, it turned out that the gold medal she won was Nigeria’s eighth of the Games and sixth in para-powerlifting to match six they won in the sport four years earlier at London 2012; and she went on to declare that it was made possible through determination, natural talent, a lot of hard work as well as support from state and federal governments.
She is grateful to everyone that helped her reach that peak at the 2016 Paralympics, after which she had her second child but later suffered several setbacks; yet she remains fully determined to reach greater heights in a sport that she says she remains as passionate about today as she was when she first stepped into the Owerri gym back in 2001.
Orji told BBC Sport Africa: “I lifted 70kg on the first day; it was very simple and normal to me. The coach said he had never seen anyone lift that even 50kg on their first attempt. Coach Lucky Ibe told me, I would be a champion, and that I’d get on a plane, travel the world to international competitions.
“I couldn’t sleep I was carrying those weights in my dream that night, so I went back home and quit my job and I started training. I felt like walking that day, leaving that wheelchair to walk with my legs.
“People from other countries were jubilating, holding me, asking me to take pictures with them, asking for my shirt, and to sign autographs on their face or anywhere. I remembered all these popular musicians – I felt like them, that night I could not sleep.”
