Christine Ohuruogo – 200m & 400m

If you would like further information please contact us on:
'Nuff' Respect
Email: agent@nuff-respect.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8891 4145

 

The reigning Commonwealth, World and Olympic Champion over 400m, Christine Ohuruogu has her sights firmly set on becoming the first woman to have ever defended her World title in Berlin this August.

 

Most Athletes dream of the Olympic Games coming to their country, but for Christine born and bred in the 2012 Olympic borough of Stratford, when the Games come to London she will be defending her title in her home town. This, combined with her impressive performance in the Birds Nest which brought home Britain’s only Track and Field Gold has resulted in Christine being heralded as the future face of 2012.

 

As a former U17 and U19 England netball player, Christine participated in Athletics from the age of 16 because of her love for running. She began to specialise in the 400m after agreeing to run her first race as no other athlete from Newham & Essex Beagles wanted to compete over such a distance. Christine was then regularly selected to run the 400m due to the impressive times she ran for her age.

 

In 2001, she ran 25.0 for the 200m and 55.29 for the 400m, placing her 3rd in the junior international rankings. In 2002, a hamstring injury forced Christine to miss the season, however, she made a superb return in 2003 by performing a personal best (54.21) taking bronze place at the European 400m. This proved to be the first of many Major Championship medals.

 

Christine’s Olympic debut came in Athens 2004. A true Championship performer Christine was not phased by the enormity of the event achieving a new personal best of 50.50 in the heats and only narrowly missed a place in the Final finishing 4th in her semi final.

 

Opening her 2005 season at the European cup, running 53.01 in her individual event and running the first leg of the winning 4x400 quartet. Improvements were seen throughout the year as she added the U23 AAA title to her list of achievements and took 2nd place at the senior AAA championships. Christine got her time over 400m down to 50.73 giving her silver at the U23 European Championships. On the Grand Prix circuit Christine continued to demonstrate her formidable talent finishing 4th in London and Sheffield and playing a vital role in securing bronze for the British relay team at the World Championships in Helsinki.

 

Christine’s improvement continued with an impressive victory at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. She convincingly beat the reigning World 400m champion, Tonique Williams, to win gold in another pb of 50.28 before adding a gold in the 4x400m to her impressive medal haul.

 

After this impressive start to her season, Christine unfortunately fell foul of a doping violation, whereby she omitted to inform UK Athletics of a last minute change in her training location. Christine was banned from competing in the sport she loves for twelve months, but as a testimony to her character continued to train and came back fitter and stronger to win the World Championship in Osaka in August 2007. Lining up for the Final with fellow compatriot Nicola Saunders both appeared out of the medals coming off the final bend, however Christine’s hard work over the winter months paid off, surging past her rivals on the home straight to clinch the Gold and becoming the first female British Athlete to win a World track title in 14 years. Later she added a Bronze to this collection as part of the British 4x400m team.

 

 

Following her successes Christine was selected as the British Athletics Writers' female athlete of the year and was nominated for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.

 

True to her character despite these successes after a well deserved couple weeks off Christine put her head down and got back in her winter training with her eyes firmly set on Olympic Gold.

 

Opening up her 2008 outdoor season whilst training in California Christine started as she meant to go on winning both the 200m and 100m, setting a new PB of 11.35. Regularly featuring on the start line for the 200m at the beginning of the season Christine’s first race over 400m came in Ostrava in June, finishing first in a time of 51.06.

 

In her final race before setting off to the Olympic holding camp, Christine competed in the 400m at the Aviva London Grand Prix giving the home crowd something to cheer about, crossing the line first against a field of world class athletes.

 

At the end of July, Christine travelled out to the holding camp in Macau with the rest of Team GB for her final preparations for the Beijing Olympics.

 

Showing great confidence and form throughout the rounds, Christine won each in well timed and controlled raced consistently reducing her times to give just enough to secure a place in the following round.

 

On the evening of Tuesday 19th August she stepped into her blocks in her first Olympic Final with favourite Sanya Richards in the lane outside of her. Coming off the final bend it looked as though Christine may finish out of the medals, but confident in her strength she timed the race to perfection, bringing the 91,000 strong crowd to their feet as well as viewers across the globe, Christine crossed the line first to claim her crown as Olympic Champion.

 

Since Beijing, Christine has won a number of awards including the British Athletics Writers award for ‘Best British Athlete’ and ‘Best Performance in a British vest’. She was also once again, included in the nominations for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the year. Team GB won ‘Best Team Performance’ at ITV’s Pride of Britain awards which Christine collected on their behalf. The Evening Standard included her in the list of ‘1000 Most influential Londoners’ alongside Boris Johnson and Prince Charles and Time Out Magazine named her as one of the ’40 Men and Women who make London’.

 

Christine has become a household name with TV appearances including; GMTV, Inside Sport, Who wants to be a Millionaire, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Sports Round and Blue Peter.

 

Looking forward to 2012, as a Stratford girl Christine is rapidly becoming the competitor’s face of 2012. Regularly making appearances representing Team GB, she was chosen to raise the Olympic flag outside City Hall on the team’s behalf in a high profile ceremony to mark the flag coming to the host city.

 

Always keen to support the city she has grown up in, Christine read at the Mayors Christmas carol service, turned on the Christmas lights at Royal Exchange as well as promoting and attending the Visit London Awards and London Youth Achievement Awards.

 

Christine is sponsored by Adidas, and as one of their Global Icons looks forward to being involved in their activity in the build up to 2012. She is also involved with various other commercial brands in their 2012 activation.

 

Off the track, she gained a 2:1 in Linguistics at University College of London and generally enjoys reading and listening to music to help her relax. As one of eight siblings Christine spends a great deal of time with her family, supporting her younger sister Victoria who is quickly proving to be a name to watch as National age group champion over 300m.

 

With Christine holding a strong belief that everyone should always make the most of their talent, she uses the fact that there is so much more out there to be achieved as her motivation to continue to break barriers on the track.

 

January 2009