IWD 2021: Ajunwa, Onyali, Omagbemi… 12 sportswomen who made Nigeria proud

In honour of the 2021 International Women’s Day (IWD), TheCable examines twelve Nigerian sportswomen who have blazed the trail in their various fields and made the country proud.

The women who made the list have broken barriers in sports and placed Nigeria at the forefront of changing the historical perspective of the country both on the continent and across the global.

Chioma Ajunwa

This multi-sport athlete is the first and only individual Olympic gold medallist Nigeria has produced. She won a gold medal for Nigeria after leaping 7.12 meters at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta. She is the first and only woman to compete in the FIFA Women’s World Cup as a footballer as well as the Olympic games doing track and field. She is also the first African woman to win an Olympic gold medal in a field event.

Ajunwa, who is a police officer, has a foundation which she set up in 2017 to discover new Nigerian stars in sports.

Mary Onyali

Onyali led a Nigerian quartet that made history as the first African women team to win a 4x100m relay medal in Barcelona at the 1992 Olympic Games.

She also won the 1994 Commonwealth Games 100 metres title.

The five-time Olympian won bronze medal in the women’s 200m race at the 1996 Atlanta Games to become the first Nigerian athlete to win two medals at the Olympics.

Falilat Ogunkoya

The 56-year-old former athlete won a number of national championships, including a gold medal in 1996 in the 400m, gold in the 200m and 400m in 1998. She also won a gold medal in 1999 and 2001 in the 400m.

While at the All Africa Games (AFG) in Nairobi in 1987, she won the silver medal in the 200m. In 1995 AFG, she won the silver in the 400m. Ogunkoya then claimed gold at the AGF in Johannesburg in 1999.

She won a bronze medal in the women’s 400m at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta with a personal best and African record of 49.10 seconds, which is currently the twelfth fastest of all time.

Mercy Akide-Udoh

Akide-Udoh is the first African Women Footballer of the Year in 2001.

She was also included in the 1999 and 2004 FIFA World All-Star teams.

She has played for Nigeria in three FIFA Women’s World Cups and also helped Nigeria’s Super Falcons to three African Women Championships titles in 1998, 2000 and 2002.

She’s one of fifteen FIFA ambassadors for Women’s football.

Florence Omagbemi

Having played with the national team for over a decade, Omagbemi participated in four world cups for Nigeria.

She won the AWCON title with the Falcons four times in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004.

She was also part of the Nigerian team which competed in the Olympics for the first time in the 2000 edition in Australia.

The 46-year-old former Falcons captain is the first woman to win the Africa Women Cup of Nations as both a player and coach.

Perpetua Nkwocha

Perpetua Nkwocha participated in seven editions of  AWCON in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014, winning five of them.

She netted four goals against Cameroon in the 2004 AWCON final to win the title for Nigeria. She also set a record by scoring nine overall goals during the tournament and was named the best player.

Nkwocha was voted four times as African Women’s Footballer of the Year in 2004, 2005, 2010 and 2011 respectively.

She participated in four FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015, as well as the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Asisat Oshoala

This Ikorodu-born footballer was named best player and was the highest goal scorer at the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Canada. She was also named best player and second top goalscorer with the Super Falcons team who won the 2014 African Women’s Championship in Namibia.

The 26-year-old, who plies her trade with FC Barcelona Femeni, has had a stint with Liverpool, Arsenal and Dalian Quanjian FC in China.

She was named the 2015 BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year. Oshoala also won the African Women’s Footballer of the Year four times in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019.

Funke Oshonaike

The six-time Olympian is also a three-time African champion in table tennis. The 45-year-old was team Nigeria’s flag-bearer at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil. The former African champion is committed to promoting gender equality through table tennis and has continued to help those in need in Nigeria through her foundation.

Blessing Okagbare

She is an Olympic and World Championships medalist in the long jump and in the 100 and 200 metres. She was also a triple jump bronze medallist at the 2004 Nigerian National Sports Festival.

At the age of 19, she won a bronze medal in the women’s long jump event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She also won gold in the long jump, 100 metres and 4x100m women’s relay at the African Championships in 2010. The team of Okagbare, Osayomi, Lawretta Ozoh, and Agnes Osazuwa set a new championship record with a run of 43.43 seconds — more than a full second ahead of the silver-winning Cameroonian quartet.

She won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games with a time of 10.85, breaking the game’s record of 10.91 seconds set by Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie earlier at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. The Delta-born athlete won the gold medal in the 200m also to become the fourth woman to win the 100m and 200m double at the Commonwealth Games. In 2018, she broke the 200m women African record held by Mary Onyali-Omagbemi set in 1996.

Okagbare holds the Guinness World Records for the most appearances in Diamond League Meetings, making a total of 67 appearances between July 3, 2010, and August 31, 2018.

Ese Brume 

Brume is a three-time African senior champion in the long Jump and holds a personal best of 7.05 meters.

In 2019 in Doha, Qatar, Ese Brume won Nigeria’s 1st World Championships medal in six years, since Blessing Okagbare’s silver and bronze medals.

Odunayo Adekuruoye

Adekuruoye is a two-time Commonwealth gold medallist in freestyle wrestling in 2014 and 2018 respectively. The 27-year-old is also a silver medallist at the 2017 World Wrestling Championships in the women’s freestyle 55kg.

Onome Ebi

Ebi is the first African football player to have played in five different FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments. She participated in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. She also took part in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The 37-year-old Falcons defender has taken part in six AWCON and winning four times.