Former United States’ youth team athlete, Oyesade Olatoye is relishing her silver medal in women’s hammer throw at the ongoing African Athletics Championships in Accra, Ghana, where she revealed that passion for Nigeria spurred her on.
Sports247 reports that, Olatoye, who competed for USA in 2016 at the IAAF World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland and switched allegiance to Nigeria in 2019, added that the stiff opposition in Accra also motivated her.
Olatoye said she was proud wearing Nigeria’s colours and enthused that every championship she is involved in with the country’s contingent presents a fresh opportunity for her to serve the nation that she truly adores.
The excited throws athlete grew up in University Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, USA, where she started off by playing basketball, then started participating in track and field in her seventh grade at Dublin Coffman High School.
She holds high school records in the shot put and discus and won four state titles in track and field, then blossomed as a scholarship athlete at Ohio State University (OSU), where she started her college career in 2016 as a track and field athlete.
She graduated from the School of Health and Rehabilitation sciences in 2020 with a BSc in health and rehabilitation sciences, then pursued a master’s degree at Ohio State during her last collegiate year of athletics, with a degree in bioethics.
The amiable athlete, who is now fondly called ‘Mrs Reliable,’ continued as a scholar athlete all through her years in the College of Medicine and completed her master’s degree in 2023, four years after switching allegiance to Nigeria.
Her outdoor events personal bests are shot put 17.88m (Austin 2019), discus throw 56.68 (Bloomington 2021), hammer throw 69.89 (Columbus 2021) and weight throw 25.32 (Nashville 2023), while indoor shot put is 17.88 (Ann Arbor 2019)
Olatoye’s feat in Accra comes seven years after she won two medals at the 2019 African Games, then competed in shot put at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar and featured in hammer throw at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
She delivered a strong performance with a throw of 69.60m to secure silver, after which Olatoye said her attention will now shift to preparations for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, where she hopes to make a bigger impact for Nigeria.
“The experience is never enough. Every championship comes with a new opportunity. To represent the country is a feeling that can never get old. I just give my best. The competition was felt, which brings out the best in me,” Olatoye said.
