Idris Adesina
Blessing Okagbare seeks her first win at the IAAF Diamond League in Eugene, when she battles Ivory Coast duo Marie Josee Ta Lou and Murielle Ahoure as well as Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson in the women’s 100m event on Saturday.
The competition, whose official name is the Prefontaine Classic, is one of the IAAF Diamond League’s elite international track and field meets.
The African 200m record holder will be making her ninth consecutive appearance at the meeting following her debut in 2010 when she ran 11.03secs to place fourth in the 100m.
Okagbare will hope to go faster than the 10.90secs she ran in Doha last week to come second behind Ta Lou in the 100m at the opening leg of the 14-leg meetings.
Ta Lou ran a new 10.85secs personal best to win in Doha and looks set to be between the Nigerian and a first-ever victory in Eugene.
Okagbare will also have double Olympics champion Thompson to contend with. The Jamaican is hoping to re-discover the form that gave her 100m and 200m gold in Rio two years ago. Thompson was third behind Ta Lou and Okagbare in Doha.
In Doha, Ahoure placed fourth in 10.96secs and will also prove as a challenge to the Nigerian. She dethroned the Nigerian as African 100m record holder when she ran 10.78secs in Florida in June 2016.
Other challengers in the event are Dutch Dafne Schippers, who is hoping to race back to reckoning after placing sixth in Doha, and Tori Bowie who is also battling to return to form.
Okagbare has had a good record running at the Hayward Field. She clocked a wind-aided 10.75secs in the 100m on the Hayward Field track to come second behind Jamaica’s Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce in 2013. She also ran her former PB of 22.23secs to place second behind Bowie in the 200m in 2014. She however broke the PB in March when she ran 22.04secs to set a new African record.
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Source: Punch
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