It has been a while since Nigeria has had a proper world class female athlete, hasn’t it?
Via Nike.com:
World-class sprinter and long jumper Blessing Okagbare, 26, is already the fastest woman in Africa — her best of 10.79 seconds is the continent’s 100-meter record — but the Nigeria athlete is less concerned with maintaining her ranking than she is about beating herself.
In her little profile on the Nike website, she shares her intense training regimen:
“I train for both [sports] on the same day. For the jumps, I practice techniques and afterwards I switch to the sprints, focusing on my speed work, especially my starts, which is what I battle with.”
“I start at 6 a.m. every morning in the gym before I run; you get muscles from explosive training. The power of my runs comes from doing weight training and the speed comes from track running.”
“Training with competitors does not get to me because I focus on myself. During the race, I don’t even notice if my training partner is in the race, but I don’t underestimate anyone. As long as you are on the starting line, you are a competitor.”
Crazy.
