Who is taking over from me? Mary Onyali- Omagbemi

For 22 years (1982 – 2004), Mary Onyali-Omagbemi ruled Nigerian tracks and field like colossus; shattering records in her strides and winning Olympics medals twice (1992 & 1996) before quitting the stage. Onyali was the first Nigerian athlete to compete in five Olympic Games. She also holds a record of seven individual medals in sprints at All Africa Games. Even after hanging her spikes, the passion for the game that brought her so much fame is yet to fade; which is why the sprint queen is back nurturing talents from the grassroots. Newswatch Sports’ EMEKA EZEUGWU and BEN ALOZIE Peter cornered the sprint sensation as she scouts talents in Nigeria and she bared minds on thorny issues, including drugs, her family, her NGOs, her sportswear manufacturing company etc. Excerpts:

You took a break, gave birth to a baby and went back to the tracks to still do what you were doing. A breastfeeding mother still burnt the tracks. How did you do it?

My return to the tracks after child birth was very difficult. I didn’t know how difficult it would be before the birth because I never experienced it before then. It was difficult and the same time rewarding. Difficult in the sense that I missed my new baby 24/7, I missed being the mother 24/7. But it was rewarding because the feeling of wanting to come back after the child birth was still there. I decided to take a break to have a baby to see if that will force me to drop my spikes; to see if the passion – the zeal will leave me, but unfortunately, it didn’t. I couldn’t lie to myself. If the body and mind were still willing, I said, let me give it a trial. I did and I ran close to my personal best timing a year after giving birth to a baby. That was an indication that it wasn’t time to quit. I wanted to see what would happen a year after the birth because I spoke to a few international colleagues who had had child birth and they told me that it wasn’t easy. They said that in the first year after birth, you would feel like nothing happened because your natural hormone from child birth is still there; it is like a natural drug, but in subsequent years, it becomes difficult for you to continue. That natural hormone from child birth will take you through a year and half, but after that, your body returns to normal and there comes the hard fact. Exactly what they predicted happened. I said okay maybe that will be my rise and gradual descent and it did.

So at what point in time did you decide to drop the spikes?

I started seeing the signs from Sydney 2000 Olympics. A year earlier, in 1999, I had my first injury ever in my career. The next year in 2000 Olympics, I had a hamstring. It was one injury after the other because with the child birth comes the expansion of your ligament; it is weakened and for it to contract to normal takes a lot of work. So that gave way to a lot of injuries I sustained. When the injuries started to come, I knew it was time to quit. There was no way a professional athlete at my level would be treating injuries one after the other every year. I never got a full year of injury-free competition after that. After the quadriceps, came the hamstring, after that came the torn knee ligament and my ankle; it was like the wall (my body) was crumbling in one heap. So I said it was time to go.

Isn’t it intriguing that throughout your active years on the tracks, you never had an injury until 15 years after. How did you manage your physique to stay injury-free for that long as an athlete?

I wouldn’t say there was no minor injury here and there, but major injury for that long, yes. And it boiled down to 3D. With 3D, my coach said warm up; and I was already warming up; stretch yourself up, and I stretched myself this way and that way; cool down after every track event and I cooled down; get home and ice yourself, and I did. I carried out every instruction to the last order. A lot of athletes don’t do that. They get carried away as soon they come back from track events, they drop their spikes and off they go partying, shopping all day and forget to cool down. What stops you from cooling down first before you go? I didn’t do all those stuffs. It is not that I don’t like partying or having fun with my friends, I do have fun, but that is after I have done my home work first. I know that this body is my empire. It is my investment. How I treat it, what I put in there – garbage in, garbage out. What I put in there is what I am going to get out. Ask any of my coaches – from Coach Toblow that made me to my international coaches and they will tell you that I am the most coachable athlete in the whole world; because I will do what they tell me and much more. If I don’t understand, I will ask until I get it right. It doesn’t make sense if I don’t understand and begin to do it only to get myself injured. I am not saying I am perfect; I am a human being and I erred in some areas, but I made it as minimal as possible. Yes it is nice to win at championships, come back and get showered with monetary rewards, but in between all that, my legs and what I put into my body (trimming wise) fetch me my livelihood in Europe. If I don’t get it right, I will get injured. If I get injured, I will lose out in a lot of races and in all I lose out, I lose money. So I put the right thing in. I was disciplined to do that because I know at the end of the year I gonna go back to Europe and make the money back. In order words, I invested in myself.

After your era, Nigeria have been to the Commonwealth Games, Olympic Games and even to the World Athletic Championships and have not been able to make any impact. What do we do to get back to your era when you made so impact in those meets?

That’s what we are doing right now – going back to the drawing board. We left 15 – 20 years void and it will take the same number of years to fill it back. Sport is no magic. Talents are born and given by God, but coaches sharpen them. I am happy seeing, nowadays, inter-house sports being held in schools; getting the kids re-oriented into sports. Before I left, I kept saying there would be a void if nothing is done to fill the space. I kept asking where are the inter-house sports? Who is taking over from me? I was even begging them to find who will take over from me. People said I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want my records to be broken. Blessing Okagbare shattered my record the other day. Records are meant to be broken because I broke somebody else’s record too. If nobody breaks my record and nobody breaks Blessing’s record, there is no progress. The void is there because we did not build our house with a revolving door that will throw up another Mary Onyali. I could have left tracks and field just five years into my career maybe due to injury or something, who would have filled that void? Yes the likes of Chioma (Ajunwa) came along; the likes of Endurance (Ojokolo) came along, Mercy Nku, Christy Okpala were all there. It made the competition more interesting and healthy when they had to compete with me. There were times when all the eight girls lined up on the tracks will all lean on the finishing tape that you will require photo-finish to determine the winner. Do something that will bring out another set of eight girls that will push these people out of their marks. That’s the revolving there that I am talking about. We are finally getting back to it after 10 – 15 years of void. We have 150 million Nigerians. Mary-Onyali is everywhere. They are there selling pure (sachet) water, newspapers on the streets. They are all hawking peanuts. We just have not been able to put up structure that will find them out and nurture them.

You have a daughter. How old is she now and is she on the tracks too?

My daughter is 16 and she is on the tracks doing very well. In the next 5 – 10 years, if she stays focused and not get distracted by one thing or the other, she might break into the limelight. She doesn’t have a choice because I am her coach and my husband is her coach.

 

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