Tosin Oke

Tosin Oke
Personal information
Nationality	Nigeria/United Kingdom
Born	1 October 1980 (age 44); London, England
Height	1.79 m (5 ft 10+1⁄2 in)
Weight	77 kg (170 lb)
Sport
Country	Nigeria
Sport	Athletics
Event	Triple jump
Club	Mizuno
Achievements and titles
Highest world ranking	7th
Personal best	17.23m
Medal record
African Championships in Athletics
All-Africa Games
Commonwealth Games
	Updated on 10 September 2012

Tosin Oke (born 1 October 1980 in London, England) is a Nigerian track and field athlete, who competes in the triple jump.^[1] Born a dual national, he initially competed for Great Britain. He set the current UK junior indoor record and was 1 cm shy of the outdoor junior record. He was the 1999 European Athletics Junior Championships Champion, and came 5th at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. After multiple indoor and outdoor UK titles, he later switched to compete for Nigeria. Since competing for Nigeria he has won back-to-back African Championships in Athletics titles and the Commonwealth Games championship and is the current All-Africa Games Champion. At the 2012 Summer Olympics Oke finished seventh in the triple jump final, the best Nigerian result of the Games.

Early life

Oke was born in Newham, London to Nigerian parents, and later moved to Islington, Hackney and Greenwich where he spent his late teens.

Education

Tosin went to Amhurst Primary School, now called Brook Community School, where he left early to attend Secondary School in Nigeria's best Federal Government School – King's College Lagos. After just under 2 years, he returned to London to attend Christ's College, a private School in Blackheath, followed by A-levels at Thomas Tallis sixth form. From there he went on to study Chemistry at the University of Manchester, and Osteopathy at the British School of Osteopathy.

Career

Oke began competing in 1997 for Cambridge Harriers, South-east London. Within 2 years, at age 18, he won the 1999 European Junior Championships with a jump of 16.57 metres, and in the same year jumped the UK indoor junior record of 16.12m, that still stands today. He also finished fifth at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and twelfth at the 2002 European Championships. In 2003 he came fourth in the European Cup.^[2]

His 16.65 metres from the 2002 Commonwealth Games was his personal best for many years.^[2] In the 2004–05 season he changed coaches to work with John Herbert, the coach of Phillips Idowu and Jade Johnson at the time.

Injury

Between 1999 and 2007, Tosin suffered a multitude of injuries, from a Gilmore's groin, to a fractured fat pad in his foot. They severely hampered his progress, whilst his peers went on to win Olympic medals.

Osaka 2007

In August 2007 he finally set a new personal best, jumping a World Championships B standard of 16.86 metres at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.^[2] He was controversially left out of the British World Championships team for Osaka initially by Dave Collins and further backed up by Niels de Vos. Oke described the decision as, 'dysfunction at best, and very sinister at worst'.

Returning home

In 2008, Tosin declared his interest in competing for his country of origin, Nigeria. He also returned to work with his old coach, but set his own schedules, and assumed full control over his training. In 2009 at the Mobil Nigerian National Championships, Tosin jumped a World Championship B standard of 16.65m, and represented Nigeria for the first time at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. At the World Championships he did not reach the final, but came 7th in his qualification group achieving a new personal best of 16.87 metres. He finished the year ranked 47th in the world.

Championships success

In the 2010 season, Tosin jumped a series of personal bests indoors, finishing with 16.89m in Birmingham.^[2] Outdoors he opened up with a short approach competition at the Loughborough international, and in his second competition broke the British Athletics League record with 17.05m at Copthall, Hendon. In his finest season so far, he went on to win the 2010 African Championships in Nairobi, Kenya with a personal best jump of 17.22m, 1 cm off the Championship record, and to top it off, became the 2010 Commonwealth Games Champion in New Delhi, India with his second furthest jump ever—17.16m. Oke finished the year ranked 9th in the world.

2011 was an indifferent season for Oke, with many ups and downs. Due to the long 2010 season, Tosin decided to give the indoor circuit a miss. He opened up outdoors in Daegu with a modest 16.74m, and within two Meets jumped 17.14m at the Nigerian National trials, backed up with a 17.20m in Barcelona – where he got injured, and a 17.21m at the Diamond League meeting in London – where he got injured again! Needless to say, with multiple injuries, the World Championships in Daegu was not a happy hunting ground; he jumped 16.60m, came 8th in his qualifying group, but did not make it to the final. Two weeks later, a heavily strapped up Oke, was able to rise to the occasion for his country, and jump a last gasp 16.65m at the 2011 All-Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique for the gold medal. After the end of season heroics, Oke finished the season ranked 14th in the world.

Tosin opened up the 2012 Olympic season with a bang, a 17.23m personal best at his National trials in Calabar really signalled his intent for the year ahead. A few days later he went to Porto Novo for the 2012 African Championships in Athletics, to defend his title. He did so with a 5th round jump of 16.98m a distance he deemed sufficient to retain his title, and make his countrymen proud once again. His next competition was the Diamond League in London, where he came third to Christian Taylor & Leevan Sands with a jump of 16.93m in the rain and wind of London.

London 2012 Olympics

Next it was the big one, the 2012 Summer Olympics... Oke was ranked 11th in the world going into this competition, and qualified with relative ease with a jump of 16.83m to come 9th overall in the qualifying round. The final was a different affair, he managed two very different 16.90m+ jumps and was suffering from runway issues due to a recurrence of his hamstring injury from 2011. He came a creditable 7th, but knew the opportunity for an Olympic medal was lost after his great start to the season. In his post event interview, Oke severely criticised the Nigerian teams preparation for the Games, and implicated that his sports administrators were not giving Government released funds to the athletes, something that destroyed the teams chances at the Games. His comments stirred action at the highest level of Nigerian politics; the President Goodluck Jonathan, ordered an immediate overhaul of the sports sector, and the fallout from Team Nigeria's overall performance at the Games is ongoing. In his next competition, Oke jumped 16.76m in round three, and when he tried to push for the big one, strained his hamstring at take-off. According to him, it had been coming for a while – since April, but he was just trying to manage the problem until after the Olympics. He finished the season ranked 8th in the world, and is due to see the world-renowned Dr.Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt to solve his hamstring problem.

Competition record

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Notes
Representing Great Britain and England
1999	European Junior Championships	Riga, Latvia	1st	16.57 m
2002	Commonwealth Games	Manchester, United Kingdom	5th	16.65 m
2002	European Championships	Munich, Germany	12th	NM
Representing Nigeria
2009	World Championships	Berlin, Germany	16th (q)	16.87 m
2010	African Championships	Nairobi, Kenya	1st	17.22 m
2010	Commonwealth Games	New Delhi, India	1st	17.16 m
2011	World Championships	Daegu, South Korea	16th (q)	16.60 m
2011	All-Africa Games	Maputo, Mozambique	1st	16.65 m
2012	African Championships	Porto Novo, Benin	1st	16.98 m
2012	Olympic Games	London, United Kingdom	7th	16.95 m
2014	Commonwealth Games	Glasgow, United Kingdom	2nd	16.84 m
2014	African Championships	Marrakech, Morocco	2nd	16.97 m
2015	World Championships	Beijing, China	8th	16.81 m
2015	African Games	Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo	1st	17.00 m