Another female athlete with a Nigerian name has caused a major stir in the global shot-put scene, as Yemisi Ogunleye enacted an early stand-out performance at the German Indoor Championships in Dortmund.
Sports247 reports that Ogunleye, who is already an Olympic Games women’s shot-put champion, shot back into the spotlight on Sunday, after she threw an outright personal best of 20.37m to win the title.
Ogunleye notched the leading spot by almost two metres ahead of Katharina Maisch and marked an improvement of 10cm on her previous best, which she set at last year’s German Indoor Championship.
The new mark put ‘the gospel singer’ second on the 2026 world list behind world champion Jessica Schilder (20.49m) before she later on moved to third spot, following the first day of action at the US Championship.
The 27-year-old Ogunleye, who was born in Germersheim, Germany and grew up in the village of Bellheim, with a German mother and Nigerian father, won shot put gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics with 20.00 metres in the last round.
Ogunleye, who trains with Club MTG in Mannheim, Germany, earlier finished 10th at the 2023 World Athletics Championship, a year before she led the field with her first throw at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championship and won silver.
