Drawing from a very wide gene pool, not just athletes who compete in track and field are featured at the Olympics in Tokyo.
The Nigerian woman, who is 32 years old, was the second best in the long jump at the 2008 Beijing Games. She also did well in 2013 at World Championships in Moscow. She won gold medals for jumping and running, and bronze medals for jumping.
There have been times that she was unlucky. For example, at the recent Doha 2019 Worlds, she was not able to start running because of breaking rules during the prelims stage.
Track and field athlete Okagbare
This year, the track and field athlete has set many personal bests. She has been on the podium at Diamond League events. This summer, she finished a race in Lagos with a time of 10.63 seconds (the second best time in women’s sprint history). But because it was too windy, she didn’t make it across the finish line.
Jamaica’s Shelley-Anne Fraser-Price was lucky. The same seconds did not raise any issues to the referees and she was able to be a contender for gold in the games.
In Tokyo, Okagbare won her preliminary race at the Olympics. She could have made it to the finals in Tokyo when American Sha’Karri Richardson tested positive for marijuana. But that won’t happen because she will not race again until after her punishment. The athlete was found with traces of synthetic growth hormone in a test taken on July 19th.
How it happened
The important thing is that growth hormone can only be injected. It is a popular type of doping for athletes who need to improve their performance. The Nigerian woman was caught because she hadn’t taken it recently. Any delay would not detect traces of it in her blood. And she got her dose in the US, where she has been training for over 10 years.
The first doping case in Tokyo
The first doping incident in Tokyo happened on Monday. Before the start of the triathlon finals, it became known that Yulia Yelistratova from Ukraine had been suspended from competing because she had tested positive for EPO, which is a medicine that helps your body make more red blood cells.