Fastest Man In Africa, Olusoji Fasuba, Joins Royal Navy
Friday, February 17, 2012Omoba
Africa's 100m record holder,
Olympic bronze medallist, indoor 60m world champion, and one of the fastest men
on the planet, Nigerian-born Olusoji Fasuba has just completed nine months of
training to become a logistics specialist in the Royal Navy.
The 28 year old Olusoji
retired from professional running and joined the Navy last May to provide a
more settled life for his wife and baby daughter. He's married to 400m runner
Ngozi Nwokocha, and they have seven-month-old daughter Annabelle. As a runner, Olusoji set an
African record in the 100m of 9.85 seconds, just 0.27 of a second slower than
the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt.....more pictures inside
Now living in Plymouth with his family the young sailor said: "I've had a very good career in athletics and been there with the big boys, but I was looking to the future and wanted to settle.
“My father used to work for
the Nigerian Navy, so from a young age it was all about the Navy. Some of my
friends are serving in the British Army and tried to persuade me to join, but
for me it had to be the Royal Navy.
“Training has been my way of
life for a long time. Growing up in Nigeria discipline is very strict, so that
aspect of being in the Navy wasn't really a shock to me. It was tough mentally
sometimes and I did question myself about what I was doing, but ultimately I
wanted to do it for myself and my family."
During his specialist
training Fasuba was appointed the role of class leader. He played for Raleigh's
football team and lists a week's leadership training at Tal-y-bont in Wales as
one of the highlights of his course.
In his new role Fasuba will
be responsible for ensuring that his unit has everything it needs to operate,
ordering and storing millions of pounds worth of equipment, from engineering
parts to stationery.
He said:
"All my life has been
about sport, so I wanted to try something different. We were under a lot of
pressure to learn a lot during our specialist training and I surprised myself
in being able to understand it all.
“In this job I'll be working
in an office or a storeroom and I'll be able to keep my athletics as a hobby.
I'm excited about my first posting as I've never had what you would call a
regular job and I'm looking forward to actually working in a stores
department."
For the future Fasuba is
hoping to complete a full career in the Royal Navy and maybe transfer to the
Officer Corps at some stage.
He is keen to apply for
British citizenship and although his priority is his new career and his family,
he hopes one day to equal his feat of winning the 60-metre world indoor
championships for Nigeria by taking the title for Britain.
The junior sailor has been
training at weekends in Plymouth where he has been giving running tips to the
younger generation.
Elsewhere on the sporting
front, Olusoji latest goal is to become a member of the Royal Navy bobsleigh
team and he will soon be travelling to Austria for his first try out at the
Inter-Service games.
Olusoji said:
“As soon as I saw the film
Cool Runnings, I thought: ‘I could do that.’ I've never done it before and I
may not like it so I need to build my love for the sport and I've given myself
five chances to see how things go.
“I've looked at the
statistics and I know I can do it. My ambition is to represent Britain at
bobsleigh at a Winter Olympics."
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