Blessing Okagbare

Blessing Oghnewresem Okagbare-Otegheri (born 9 October 1988) is a former Nigerian track and field athlete who specialized in long jump and sprints.

She is an Olympic and World Championships medallist in the long jump and a world medalist in the 200 metres.

Okagbare also holds the women's 100 metres Commonwealth Games record at 10.85 seconds.

She is currently serving a 10-year ban for breaching multiple World Athletics anti-doping rules.

Her ban expires on 30 July 2032.

Initially, she played football as a teenager at her high school and later, in 2004, she began to take an interest in track and field.

She participated in several disciplines early on, competing in the long jump, triple jump and high jump events at the Nigerian school championships and winning a medal in each.

On the senior national stage, she was a triple jump bronze medalist at the 2004 Nigerian National Sports Festival.

Okagbare's first international outing came at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics, where she performed in the qualifying rounds of both the long and triple jump competitions.

In May 2007, at the All-Africa Games trials in Lagos, she established a Nigerian record of 14.13 meters in the triple jump.

At the 2007 All-Africa Games she won the silver medal in the long jump and finished fourth in the triple jump.

In the latter competition her Nigerian record was beaten by Chinonye Ohadugha, who jumped 14.21 meters.

As a 19-year-old, she won a silver medal in the women's long jump event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

She was selected to compete at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics but did not start either the 100 m or long jump.

Okagbare scored a 100 m/long jump double at the NCAA Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championship for University of Texas at El Paso, completing an undefeated collegiate streak for the UTEP Miners that year.

Okagbare was the African 100 m and long jump champion in 2010.

She has also won medals at the All-Africa Games, IAAF Continental Cup and World Relays.

Okagbare was suspended after failing a drugs test on 31 July 2021 during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

On 18 February 2022 it was announced that she had been banned from athletics for a period of 10 years commencing 30 July 2021 for multiple breaches of World Athletics Anti-Doping rules.

Following a hearing at the Athletics Integrity Unit that found her to have taken both human growth hormone and EPO over an extended period, and to have failed to cooperate with the investigation, Okagbare was banned for ten years, effectively ending her athletics career in disgrace.

On 23 June 2022, the AIU announced that Okagbare's ban had been extended by a year for further anti-doping offences.

Of Urhobo heritage, Okagbare was born in Sapele, Delta, in Nigeria.

Given her athletic physique, teachers and family encouraged her to take up sports.

She won the Nigerian 100 m title in 2010, running a time of 11.04 seconds, and stated that she was opting out of the long jump in order to save herself for the upcoming African championships.

At the African Championships in 2010, she won gold in the long jump again with a distance of 6.62 m while her compatriot Comfort Onyali took silver.

Okagbare also won gold in the 100 m distance with a run of 11.03 s flat, while Gabon's Ruddy Zang Milama and compatriot Oludamola Osayomi won silver and bronze with runs of 11.15 s and 11.22 s respectively.

She won her third gold at the end of the championship as part of the Nigerian 4×100 m women's relay team.

The team of Okagbare, Osayomi, Lawretta Ozoh and Agnes Osazuwa set a new championship record with a run of 43.43 s, more than a full second ahead of the silver-winning Cameroonian quartet.

In 2011, Okagbare continued to build on her earlier endeavours by establishing herself as a 100 m runner.

At the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, Okagbare placed fifth in the 100 m final with a run of 11.12 s. However, she did not make it to the final of the long jump as her best jump of 6.36 m was not enough to get her out of her qualifying group.

She concluded her 2011 season by winning three medals at the All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique.

She won silver in the 100 m behind compatriot Oludamola Osayomi with a run of 11.01 s and gold in the long jump with a jump of 6.50 m. She was part of the Nigerian quartet that won gold in the 4 × 100 m with a time of 43.34.

2012 was a busy year for Okagbare.

She jumped 6.97 m in the long jump in Calabar during the Nigerian championship.

She won new continental medals at the 2012 African Championships in Porto-Novo.

In the 100 m, she was beaten to silver by Zang Milama, while in the long jump, she claimed gold with a jump of 6.96 m.

At London 2012, Okagbare participated in her second Olympic Games.

Going into the Olympics, she had run several fast 100 m races, and there was much anticipation and hope of a medal.

Her 100 m best of 10.79 made her the African record holder for the event until it was eclipsed by Murielle Ahouré in 2016.

On June 17, 2021, Okagbare ran a wind-aided 10.63 100 m. She was the African record holder over the 200 m with a time of 22.04 seconds in 2018, thus making her the second-fastest African female athlete over the distance behind Christine Mboma, who ran an African record of 21.78 s in 2021.