Nigeria’s record holder in the 100m and 200m, Blessing Okagbare has stepped up preparations for summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The beautiful, 2014 Commonwealth Games double sprint champion will be making her fourth trip to the quadrennial event 12 years after making her debut in Beijing, China where she came back with a fortuitous silver medal.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Okagbare revealed she has stepped up preparations and her only focus is the Games in Tokyo.
‘The determination to win comes from within. #Tokyo2020 on my mind,’ she wrote as she displays a photo of herself training on the track.
The former African 100m record holder’s immediate task will be how to return to reckoning in both sprint events after failing to make the finals of both since she ran in the 100m final at the World Athletics Championship in Beijing, China.
Since then, the long-legged Nigerian has failed to make the finals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Brazil, the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championship in London, England and Doha, Qatar respectively.
Okagbare has shown she is up to the task following her impressive campaign in the indoor season, setting two personal best twice, 7.10 seconds in the 60m event and 23.01 in the 200m.
She will be hoping to become only the second Nigerian woman after Glory Alozie to win medals in a track event at both the World Athletics Championships and the Olympics.
In 2013 she won a 200m bronze and long jump silver at the World Athletics Championships in Moscow, Russia to become the only Nigerian, male or female to win a field event medal at the two global events.