Nigeria’s queen of the sprints, Blessing Okagbare will be all out to get redemption and try to exert revenge over her rivals his Friday in Monaco, France, when she goes out for her latest race on the international circuit.
Megasportsarena.com reports that this is sequel to her inability to return to winning ways at the start of this week in Budapest, Hungary, where a sensational 10.89secs season’s personal best was only good enough for fourth place.
That happened on Tuesday at the 2021 Istvan Gyulai Memorial, where Okagbare finished fourth behind Rio 2016 Olympics double champion, Elaine Thompson-Herah (10.71), Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.82) and Ivory Coast’s Marie-Jose Ta Lou (10.86).
On the same afternoon in Budapest, Nigerian shot putter, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi came fourth in his event in his first competition in the European circuit this year.
The reigning African Games champion threw a distance of 21.43m to place fourth behind Walsh Tomas of New Zealand (22.22m), Milhajevic Filip of Croatia (21.77m) and USA’s Nigerian-born starlet, Josh Awotunde (21.70m).
Enekwechi made it all the way to the final two years ago at the World Athletics Championship and he will be hoping for a repeat performance in Tokyo when he makes his Olympics debut.
Male sprinter, Divine Oduduru placed third in a race that saw a new African men’s 100m record enacted by Akani Simbine of South Africa, but Okagbare could not excel in an event she won in 2016 and 2017.
However, while Okagbare failed to win for the third time in Budapest, she enacted a personal season’s best with her fifth legal run inside 11 seconds and 23rd overall since she first broke 11 seconds at the Aviva Grand Prix in Crystal Palace, London in July 2012.
Okagbare will now head to Stade Louis 11 stadium in Monaco for the Herculis Zepter Diamond League on Friday, with her sight firmly set on upturning her rival and possibly become the first African woman to break 22 seconds in the half lap race.
