Mary Onyali (Nigeria) chases USA's Chryste Gaines in Sydney (© Getty Images)
1996 Olympic 200m bronze medallist Mary Onyali flies into Paris today from the Nigerian team’s training camp in Germany, confident she can complete her set of championship medals at the 9th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Paris 2003 Saint-Denis.
The 35 year-old Nigerian record-holder, who competed in her first World Championships in 1987, has yet to win a medal in this event and that is something she believes she can finally put right in Paris. It will be her final World Championships before she hangs up her spikes after the All-Africa Games which take place in her home country this autumn.
“I am in the best shape I have been for many years and I know I can win a medal in Paris. I have won medals in every other championship so to complete the set would be the icing on the cake. I am 110 per cent, no make that 150 per cent, confident I can get on the podium. I feel winning a medal is so close I can almost taste it, and it would mean so much to me. I do not care what colour, I just want to win a medal in the World Championships. I want it so bad but I have total confidence that I can deliver the goods.”
The reason for Onyali’s optimism is that for the first time in years she is free of injuries, and her performance in winning the Nigerian Championships 200m in 22.4 (hand timed) – the fastest time in the event for seven years - gave her a further boost as she prepares to go out on a high. Her electronically timed season’s best are also promising – 22.60 seconds back in May.
The former Commonwealth 100m champion will also run the short sprint in Paris (11.09 season’s best), as well as the 4x100m, but says:
“The 200m is my best chance of a medal. The 100m is too short and you have no chance to think, but in the 200m I know I can get a medal. People will say Marion Jones is not there but there are a lot of girls in great shape, and I plan to give them all a run for their money.”
“I have had injuries for so many years, reaching my lowest point in 1999, and it has taken a long time to get back. I really do not know how I even made the Olympic team in 2000. I would get a hamstring problem in one leg and then pick up a compensatory injury in the other leg, but since linking up with coach Yang (who also advises Kareem Streete Thompson) I have been able to overcome my injury problems.”
“Training has gone great this year and I think I have surprised Coach Yang. He said he would push me so hard that it would kill me, but us Africans are pretty tough you know. I told him ‘I am tougher than you think,’ and I think I have surprised him. No matter how hard he pushes me I always bounce back for more, and I believe my reward will come in Paris. I am running better than ever.”
“This year is the first year for ages that I have not been injured and it would great to end my career on a high. The All-Africa Games are going to be about fun and competing for my fans. It is in my home country and the Nigerians see it as bigger than the World Championships, but Paris is where I really want a medal because I desperately want to complete the set.”
Onyali has a record 20 medals (12 individual) from the African Games and Championships, and her 9 individual gold medals is a women’s record.
“I have so many happy memories from athletics, but you cannot top winning a medal in the Olympic Games. Getting bronze in 1996 was such a high moment for me, but everything went down south after that and it is only this year that things are picking up. I reached my lowest point in 1999 but now I am back and ready to win a major gold medal before retiring.”
“I don’t know how I will stay involved. People ask if I will become a coach, and I believe I could be a great coach. I think I could be a better coach than I have been an athlete, but I don’t think the person I want to coach has yet been born. I am a perfectionist. If I coach someone, they will have to give everything like I do, so I really don’t know if I will go into coaching.
“But I would like to stay involved. I want to leave my competitive days in style, and I think I will go into the All-Africa Games feeling so relaxed I could run a personal best there. That wouldn’t be a bad way to go out, would it?”
