By Nneka Ikem

The Nigerian Track and Field Queen Blessing Okagbare was on Instagram on Thursday to speak on her career, family and personal life during the global lockdown.

The 200m African record holder has been silent since the 2018 Commonwealth Games held in Australia where she opted out of the 100m race.

During her interview session, the Beijing Olympics Long jump silver medalist spoke on the severity of the Covid -19 Pandemic and the lessons there in.

She revealed that the global lockdown situation has humbled her and many others.

“This pandemic has humbled a lot of people regardless of who you are . You can’t be bigger than what’s going on right now. Sometime ago, you were up there but now, it’s like come down to earth, we are all waiting for you, so I think the pandemic has humbled everybody and we need to go back to the drawing board. The things that you meet while you were running up there, you need to come back and get those things out of your way before you continue your journey”.

READ ALSO: Abba Kyari: We need to stop spread of COVID 19 now, treat infected persons — Gbajabiamila

One of the things Okagbare regrets is not sparing enough time to spend with her family.

“I don’t talk about my family but I needed to say this. When stress was coming in through lots of work, I didn’t get in touch so much with my family. I just felt like they will always be there for me, but this whole season, I just felt like I could have done better. They weren’t happy about most of my choices and it was causing chaos and problems. But I needed my family so I had to go back because I just kept  them off the curb. I don’t think that was a good thing for me so I had to go back and find time for us to talk and bond over things that we had overlooked.

“I feel there were certain things I could have learnt from them  but because I was always working , I didn’t care. I won’t say that I neglected them because I just thought I’ll always have them. I went back and said ok, let’s do this right . Those and other things as well have really humbled me”.

Okagbare plans to go into a lot of inter -personal communication including public speaking, mentoring and motivation.

“Five years from now I’ll take time to do the things I’ve always wanted to do. We need to create legacies and it takes time.  For me, there are certain things I’ve been trying to handle for a while. I’ll say, oh I’m bigger than this, I don’t want to do this but…when I came back I’m like … did I really leave this?

“So this has humbled me because I should have made time for this. The things I thought I was bigger than, I now realize I needed them”.

Okagbare has enrolled at the Texas Tech university where she’s currently doing her Masters degree program in Interdisciplinary studies, with focus on Public administration, Communications and innovationsand Sports marketing.

“I went back to school to get my Masters. I just always thought that being a professional athlete and making a lot of money, I really didn’t care. I just focused on other things. I found out that there was so much more in me than being just an athlete. I have always wanted to go out and speak to people. I want to motivate people. I want to write about certain things. I want to be able to know how to do it, so my going back to grad school is to learn so that if I decide to go to into the things that I’m aspiring to go into at the moment, I’ll do it well.

“I’m doing a lot of work, writing and research but I love it”.

Okagbare is such a pleasant and chitty chatty lady! If you’ve not gotten close to her, you’d never experience her warmth! Yes behind that ‘American accent’ is the thoroughbred Sapele girl.

I had a private conversation with her a couple of nights ago and I’m still marveled at her humility. Is she really cocky as perceived by many?

“I get hurt when they say that, honestly, but I can’t even control what others really think about me. But those who know me know that I don’t know how to be fake and that’s one of my problems.

“Maybe the way the sports is being run just drives me crazy, though I think most of my anger comes from there…(laughs).

“Oh, and I’m always putting myself in front, to fight for athletes..na so so trouble I dey enter”.

What has really affected your performance lately?

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