Oluwatosin Bamidele “Tosin” Oke (born 1 October 1980 in London, England) is a Nigerian track and field athlete, who competes in the triple jump. 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 at 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.
His 16.65 metres from the 2002 Commonwealth Games was his personal best for many years. 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. 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. 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.