runners

"So when I transitioned out of that track, I moved into coaching immediately"

"When I saw her in the stadium, she always showed respect. She worked with my mother in a factory in Floréal. My mother told me how, every morning, Maryse Justin would hand her bag to her sister and run from her home in Quatre-Bornes to the office. My mother always told me that this lady had enormous courage, that she was very determined. That stayed with me."

"When you have faith, you can endure suffering. There are some sufferings that have no name, that you can't describe or justify, but when you believe in God, you no longer ask why me and not someone else. And that is a great achievement."

"Yes, at last, at long last, I have it. I have been through so much pain but God has worked his miracle. This shows if you keep knocking and believing, the door will eventually open."

"I dedicate this to my family since they have been praying so hard for this day. I’m glad to be home so I can celebrate with them."

"I can’t believe it! At last, at long last, I have won it."

"I did not win a medal here but I’m very happy to have helped my teammate get gold. We planned to wear them down during the race instead of waiting to kick at the finish where they beat us. Linet is stronger at finishing and that is why I accepted to do all the pacing especially when our teammate Florence (Kiplagat) dropped injured and God made our plan work."

"I would still have given it my best go if Masai was here. Sure, it would have made the race more challenging but this victory was not easy as it looks since we had to compete against bad weather."

"I was brought up with good values, so that's played a huge part in my life. I'm not outspoken, particularly, about my faith, but I'm a believer and I'm very pleased to have had a good life which I've had to this day. I'm very thankful – I've worked very hard, and having good morals instilled in me, behaving well as a citizen – I believe has helped me on the journey to where I am."

"Liberia is owned by Jesus no matter what they say or who says what, Jesus owns Liberia. Despite what we have gone through, we must forgive if we want to achieve durable peace. Though it is difficult to forgive, but we must do so in the interest of peace and our Nation. This nation belongs to God. Any government who does not know Jesus is bound to fail."

"“No, man, nobody had transportation to school. The only thing you had was ‘Legsus.’ L-E-G-S-U-S. We used to say, ‘You have a Legsus.’ Like L-E-G for the leg, then S-U-S to mimic the Lexus car. ... We have a ‘Footsubishi.’ And then I would say ‘Shoebaru’ ... to mimic the Subaru vehicle. That was the only mode of transportation that we had. If you’d ask me how you get to school, I’d say, ‘I ride the Legsus.’”"

"“I knew I wasn't the favorite [at Trials] and I had to put in the work to make sure I came out successful. But I believe in one thing: ‘Go hard or suffer the rest of your life’.”"

"I am proud of my country. I have always wanted to represent my country since I was a junior athlete and if offered the opportunity to run at the Olympic Games, I will do my level best to make the country proud."

"In recent years, when I am running, it is mostly for the joy of it...to give God glory with my talent and to inspire other people. I don’t attach my accomplishments to any country or to anyone."

"My talent was first discovered at a school athletics day a year after I arrived Norway. We had different events such as sprint, long jump and high jump. I was the fastest girl, and the guys were afraid to run against me, so, I ended up running by myself, but with the best times of all children. The teachers encouraged me after that to take up athletics."

"We believe that every girl in society, regardless of her ethnic background, should get equal chance in sports to have fun, develop her talents and enjoy being in an inclusive community. We believe that youth sports is the best tool for girls to develop self-motivation, resiliency and strong appreciation for their own health and well- being. To help young girls become the future ethical leaders and positive contributors for our society, we offer training and equipment for them free of charge twice a week."

"You can be great today and be loved by everyone and the next day you are out in the cold. It is like you are working hard your whole life for a run of a couple of seconds and sometimes you might not get rewarded for it. So, one has to take nothing for granted because nothing is guaranteed in athletics."

"It would have been a great honour to represent Nigeria at some point, but the IAAF has made it very hard to switch allegiance. Now, the athlete has to wait at least two years to compete for another country in an international championships."

"Make the best out of my training, to improve everyday, and reach the potential that I feel inside me and haven’t shown yet. If I manage to do all that, the result will surely come."

"In my first marriage, my husband wasn’t really supportive of me being a coach. But I am stubborn; coaching is what I do and what I love, and so I went for it. One of the major reasons that marriage failed was because of my career. We were together for 12 years, but there was a lot of quarrelling going on, especially when I had to travel for competitions or when I had to go to the stadium to train my athletes. I wasn’t ready to give up my career as a coach, so I formally ended the marriage in October, 2021. When you hear that a lot of women had to quit coaching because of the lack of support of their spouses, that’s actually the truth."

"Agnes Osazuwa has won the last women's 100m semifinal, clocking 11.35s to beat Gloria Asumnu who finished 2nd #NigeriaOlympicTrials"

"I go to where I am needed and I owe no one any apology for working for Rivers."

"It really gladdens my heart to have my bronze medal upgraded to a silver medal because it just simply gives me the drive to work even harder and have a rededication to a clean sports for us all."

"I will also like to use this medium to appeal to all my fellow athletes, both young and old, that no matter what you think you are facing now, I want you to just believe in yourself and continually tell yourself that the seeming punishments and disappointments of today if endured will lead to untold glories in the nearest future."

"Government has done everything so; it is left for us to pay back the kind gesture. We had good training, good facilities and good coaches. If any state deserves to win this festival, it should be Rivers."

"It was with mixed feelings that we got the news of the disqualification of the Russia’s women relay quartet due to a doping infraction by one of her team members. On the one hand we had this joy of becoming Olympic silver medallists, but on the other, a feeling of slight disappointment knowing that the winning quartet had an undue advantage due to one of its members spiking her system with banned substances. This type of revelation comes with a bit of a sad feeling considering the amount of work you honestly put in and believing (erroneously as it turns out) that everyone was competing on a level playing field. And when you now find out that some persons had undue advantage due to the use of banned substances and it deprives you of what should have been rightly yours at the time, it gives you a feeling of sadness and slight depression and disappointment in and towards the system."

"The number one reason many female coaches are not encouraged to stick with this career is the lack of support, and what I mean by support is about the Federation having your back. There are not many female coaches. There are about 10 of us in the country that I know of right now, but we are not being encouraged and supported. We need exposure. We can only get better when we are exposed, but we are not getting that from the Federation. A lot of the time you see a team consisting of four male coaches and one female coach, or none at all; where is the gender equity? These are some of the reasons women give up on coaching, because we are not getting the right support."

"Meet Endurance Ojokolo, one+ of finest female sprinters Nigeria has produced. In 2005 she got to the 4x100m final of the World Champs & 14yrs later, she's the coach of @Dushos to his debut."

"Having represented Nigeria twice at the Olympic games, I can confidently say it is unarguably the pinnacle of any athlete’s dream and getting a medal in such an epic event can be deemed to be one of the highest achievements and a dream come true that any athlete can hope for."

"At the 2008 Beijing Olympics where I and my fellow team mates (Oludamola Osayomi, Gloria Kemasuode, Franca Idoko and Halimat Ismaila) qualified through to the finals and ended up winning a bronze medal in the women’s 4x100m relay, it was nothing short of an electrifying moment. It was as if the world stood still because all the hard work, discipline and sacrifice just paid off."

"I’m excited about running at the African Masters Championships. And most definitely I will love to race against Ojokolo. Perhaps when the younger ones see us perform they will want to go and replicate it as they participate actively."

"For me and the rest of the quartet, it was as if that moment should just draw on and on. Having put in so much work and now seeing it been rewarded with a bronze medal at such an epoch making event was more than words could describe. Little did we know that fate had a whole different surprise package for us all a couple of years down the line."

"I am so disappointed in those people who said our athletes fumbled in Durban. In the first place, people should look at the circumstances our athletes travelled to Durban. About one week to the competition, athletes from other countries were already on ground in Durban, but our athletes did not even know whether they would make the trip or not. Some of our key athletes couldn’t make the trip due to one reason or the other. Coaches were also affected. I want Nigerians to celebrate the athletes. At this stage of our preparation for Rio Olympics, what they need is encouragement. We must not do things that will make the athletes remember the hard way they made the trip to Durban."

"We have prospects for the Rio Games. We are in camp right now and we are working hard. The athletes want to go to Rio and win medals and do the nation (Nigeria) proud. We are all working together to ensure that we go to Rio to win medals and do the nation proud. The athletes want to win because they know that there is something good awaiting them and they stand the chance of making good contacts thereafter. These are the future stars of Nigeria. This kind championship was used to discover the likes of Endurance Ojokolo, Blessing Okagbare, Obinna Metuh and many other stars. It is a step in the right direction and should be sustained."

"They (Government of Nigeria) must catch the athletes when they are young. We started very young. They must encourage the athletes with good incentives to be able to compete."

"I will tell the athletes to work hard and not to let sports get into their heads. They must complement their endowed talents with education. It gives them something good to hold on to after their retirement. Also as an athlete, you need to be disciplined and make up your mind on what you want. You must determine what you want to do with your life."

"The Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1974 in New Zealand in the long jump event was special. I was close to winning the gold in the hurdles too but I tripped towards it and ended up with a bronze medal."

"We were already at the 1976 Montreal, Olympics in Canada and waiting for the opening ceremony before we pulled out of the competition a day before it. Everybody was disappointed because of the hard work we had put in preparing for the Olympics for four years but it wasn’t the end of the world."

"My love for track and field made it fun and interesting for me to go to extra length to achieve the results I got. I would have won three gold medals at the 1978 African Games but I picked up a groin injury that forced me to pull out of the 100m hurdles. At the 1973 African Games, I competed in the high jump, 100m hurdle, and long jump and I clinched the gold medals in the three events. I was thrilled to win the gold medals as it was just fun for me then."

"My mum was a strong woman but she didn’t really understand what the sport is all about. She was there for me whenever she can and whatever she could do for me, she tried her best."

"Education was very important to me as an athlete back then. I took it seriously right from when I was in Nigeria and even when I got to the United States and ran for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the coaches were trying to make athletics the major priority. I made them know that I came to the US for my education while athletics is secondary. I made sure I got my degrees first. I know that with the education I have something to fall back on in the case of injury or retirement from the sport."

"Running and jumping came to me naturally. It was while I took to athletics which was known as track and field then. I took part in basketball, badminton, table tennis, and a few other sports when I was growing up but it was athletics that I stuck to."

"I didn’t get much encouragement from home at all because they didn’t know too much about sports. My mum wasn’t that educated enough to know what sports is all about."

"I regretted not going far at the Seoul Olympics due to what happened to me at the Games. It was the second round of our 400m hurdles and an athlete crossed my lane and collided with me. I fell down and could not finish the race. I was rushed to the hospital and ended the Olympics with the Plaster of Paris (POP). I was very sad because I was unable to achieve my aims and target and I will never forget that incident in my life"

"The development of a world class athlete is a long process. We need to put the process or system in place to discover and develop new athletes. The best way to do this is to start from the primary and secondary schools. Any potential athlete needs to be taught the basics in whatever event they are likely to participate in."

"My most memorable moment was when I became the first women’s champion from Texas Southern in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) meet history, winning the 400m hurdles in 55.16secs. That was in 1986. The time broke the stadium record of 55.47secs set by Anna Kastelskaya of the Soviet Union in 1982, and I was happy being a Nigerian."

"We were very dedicated and proud to wear the national colours. With support from every corner, we were always happy running for the country (Nigeria), as it was a privilege for the few of us selected to represent the country then."

"My dominance in the hurdles was mainly because of my determination to become a world-class hurdler, and I ensured that I put in my best for the country in those days."

"To become an Olympian is tough, but it is an achievable task which anyone can attain through hard work and support from their coaches and sports administrators."

"Nigerian athletes work very hard. In terms of training and seriousness, Nigerian athletes are far ahead of their European and American counterparts. What is lacking is the absence of the right facilities and this is where their foreign counterparts have an edge."