Blessing Okagbare

Reigning national 100m champion, Blessing Okagbare Wednesday returned to the stadium in Daegu, South Korea where she became the third Nigerian nay African sprinter to run in the 100m final of the IAAF World Championships to race at the Colorful Daegu Championships Meeting.

She placed second in the 100m race (11.21 seconds) behind the woman who won the last time out at the 2011 IAAF Worlds, Carmelita Jeter (11.11 seconds) of the USA.

The other Nigerian star who competed at the meet, Gloria Asumnu, was fifth in the 200m in an unimpressive 23.79 seconds.

Meanwhile, Okagbare will be the lone Nigerian campaigner this Saturday in Shanghai, China where the second leg of the 14-meeting series IAAF Diamond League will hold.
The Beijing Olympics long jump bronze medallist who will be competing in the 200m event will attempt to run faster than the 22.70 seconds new personal best she set last month at the Mount San Anthonio meet in Walnut, California, USA.

She will also be aiming to upstage the deadly duo of reigning world champion, Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown who holds a 22.22 seconds personal season's best as well as her training mate, Jeter.

Okagbare was also the only Nigerian in attendance at the opening leg of the money-spinning meeting in Doha, Qatar last weekend where she ran an impressive 11.01 seconds to place fourth in what was her first 100m race of the year.

The University of Texas in El Paso (UTEP) graduate is seen by local watchers of track and field in Nigeria as the country's brightest hopes for an individual medal at the 30th Olympic Games later this summer in London.