REIGNING Commonwealth Games double sprint champion, Blessing Okagbare Ighoteguonor on Sunday at the Prince Moulay Abdellah stadium in Rabat, Morocco overcame a slow start to place second in the 100m event at the first ever IAAF Diamond League meeting on on African soil.
The Nigerian ran a personal season’s best of 11.11 seconds into a -1.3 meteres per second (mps) headwind to come second behind Jamaica’s new sprint sensation, Elaine Thompson who ran 11.02 seconds, also a personal season’s best.
Okagbare’s time is the third fastest by an African woman in the event so far this year after the Ivorian duo of Murielle Ahoure and reigning All Africa Games fastest woman Marie-Josee Ta Lou who ran 11.02 seconds and 11.05 seconds respectively at the opening leg of the money-spinning IAAF Diamond League meeting in Doha,Qatar on May 6 this year.
Meanwhile Aminat Olowora, a former Lagos State long distance running sensation had set a new national record in the women’s 5000m event.
Olowoora, now in the USA ran 15:49.75 seconds at the Hoka One One Distance Classic at Eagle Rock in Los Angeles,USA. The time is the first sub-16 minutes run by any Nigerian woman ever.
She had also became the second Nigeria woman to break a national record this year after Chinwe Okoro who threw a distance of 61.58m at the Ohio Cherry Blossom Invitational in Athens, USA to rewrite the Nigerian discus throw record.