It would have been a great honour to represent Nigeria at some point, but the IAAF has made it very hard to switch allegiance. Now, the athlete has t… - Ezinne Okparaebo

In recent years, when I am running, it is mostly for the joy of it...to give God glory with my talent and to inspire other people. I don’t attach my accomplishments to any country or to anyone.

You can be great today and be loved by everyone and the next day you are out in the cold. It is like you are working hard your whole life for a run of a couple of seconds and sometimes you might not get rewarded for it. So, one has to take nothing for granted because nothing is guaranteed in athletics.

My talent was first discovered at a school athletics day a year after I arrived Norway. We had different events such as sprint, long jump and high jump. I was the fastest girl, and the guys were afraid to run against me, so, I ended up running by myself, but with the best times of all children. The teachers encouraged me after that to take up athletics.