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Temi and Tade Ojora are true representations of the diversity of most Nigerians with affiliations to the US and Great Britain.
The Ojora's - Temi and Tade, are a unique pair of siblings from the Ojora Royal Family in Lagos, Nigeria from which numerous prominent businessmen and socialites have emerged.
Born to Nigerian parents Ngozi and Adeyinka Ojora, the siblings have found a way to thrive with their diversity as athletes.
Tade Ojora - A British champion but a Nigerian
Tade was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but was sent to a boarding school in the United Kingdom when he was eight for his high school education at the prestigious Eton College.
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In an August 2022 interview with Blen Bloom of telegraph.co.uk, he said his passion for athletics developed through charging around his garden in Nigeria.
“I kind of fell into athletics,” said Ojora. “It wasn’t anything that I planned. When I came to England aged eight, I was running around the fields, and this kid said I was pretty fast so I went to the sports hall, raced him, and beat him.
“The head of athletics asked me to go to practice after that, so I did, and I was faster than everyone else.
“Ever since I was young in Nigeria, I’d go out every day after school in the garden and run around, racing my sisters and friends. I’d just race over and over and over again. I probably wasn’t aware that when I was racing around the garden I was setting myself up for being an athlete.”
Now age 23 and a senior at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, he has become a 3x NCAA First Team All-American (2021, 2022, and 2023) and 2x British National Champion (2021 and 2022) in the men's 110m Hurdles.
He won Great Britain's 2021 Olympic Trials and the 2022 World Championship Trials, but wasn't selected to be part of their team - the excuse that he didn't hit the automatic qualifying standard. He captained the U23 National Team in 2021 and ran for Team England at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
At the just concluded 2023 NCAA Championships, Tade ran a massive Personal Best (PB) of 13.36s to make the final, then lowered it to 13.29s to finish a painful fourth for an All-American position - an improvement of his sixth position last year.
The talented hurdler spoke with Ese Oguma of Athletic Heat, where he talked about his roots of being a proud Nigerian and having no regrets about representing Great Britain.
"I don't have a British passport, but right now, it seems running for Team GB was the correct thing to do for me," he said.
Temi Ojora - Jumper and open to representing Nigeria
Born in London, England in 2002, Ojora is a 2020 high school graduate of Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire, England, and won the England U20 high jump title in 2019 with a PB of 1.80m.
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She also won the 2017 and 2018 English Schools Championship high jump titles, breaking the English Schools’ record.
Now in her third year of competing in the jumps for USC (the same school as her brother), Temi is the USC freshman record-holder and ranks third on the school's all-time list in the triple jump.
The talented jumper equalled her triple jump PB of 13.66m to finish sixth at the 2023 NCAA Championships, and the Ojora's were declared the highest-scoring siblings based on their performances.
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Temi currently lives in Lagos with their parents and is open to representing Nigeria internationally at the senior level.
The siblings are true representations of most Nigerians with affiliations to the US and Great Britain. While they are the most popular in track and field, they will certainly not be the last, considering the immigration of Nigerians to these countries in the past few years.
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06:37 - 10.06.2023
NCAA Udodi Onwuzurike bolts to 19.84s, becomes Stanford's first 200m champion in 84 years
Udodi Onwuzurike claimed the NCAA 200m title, breaking an 84-year jinx for Stanford University.
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