Christine Ijeoma Ohuruogu , MBE (born 17 May 1984) is a British former track and field athlete who specialised in the 400 metres, the event for which she is an Olympic, World and Commonwealth champion. The Olympic champion in 2008, and silver medalist in 2012, she is a double World Champion, having won the 400 m at the 2007 and 2013 World Championships. She has also won six World championship medals in the women's 4 × 400 m relay as part of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team and bronze Olympic medals with the women's 4 × 400 m relay at the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2016 Rio Games, her final Olympics. Ohuruogu shares with Merlene Ottey and Usain Bolt the record for medalling in most successive global championships – 9 – between the 2005 World Championships in Athletics and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Ohuruogu's personal best time of 49.41 seconds, set at the 2013 World Championships, beat the UK record set by Kathy Cook in 1984 by 0.02 seconds, simultaneously making her the first British woman to win two World Championship titles, and the first British woman to win three global titles (both achievements retrospectively moved to Jessica Ennis following her promotion to gold in the 2011 World Championships). Her relay bronze at the 2016 Summer Olympics made her only the second British track and field athlete, after Steve Backley to win medals at three successive Olympic Games. She was coached by Lloyd Cowan.
Known for her strength endurance, consistent pacing, her gift for maintaining speed in the final straight as rivals struggled and slowed, and her capacity to peak for major championships, Ohuruogu retired in 2017, a year after winning her final senior global medal, a bronze as part of the Great Britain Olympic 4 × 400 metre relay team, her 12th overall global medal. Upon retirement, Ohuruogu made public her plan to begin her second career, seeking to qualify in law, with the aim of being called to the Bar.
Ohuruogu mentored Matthew Hudson-Smith in 2022; their collaboration resulted in a British 400 metre record and a World Championship bronze medal, his first, for Hudson-Smith.
Biography
Born to Igbo Nigerian parents in Newham, east London, she was raised in Stratford. She competed for Newham in the London Youth Games at both netball and athletics. She was inducted into the London Youth Games Hall of Fame in 2009. Ohuruogu studied at University College London, where she graduated in Linguistics in 2005. She also played netball during her undergraduate studies.
She has eight siblings, including Victoria Ohuruogu, a sprints competitor. She attended St. Edward's Church of England School (Romford) and Trinity Catholic High School (Woodford Green). She resumed her education in 2017 when she started a two-year law degree course at Queen Mary University of London. Ohuruogu is a member of Newham and Essex Beagles Athletics Club.
She was appointed MBE in the 2009 New Year Honours, and conferred with an Honorary Doctorate by the University of East London.
She is the author of the "Camp Gold" series of children's books about an elite training school for budding athletes.
Athletics career
In 2003, Ohuruogu was a bronze medallist at 400 m at the European Junior Championships. She became the AAA champion in the 400 m in 2004, was a semi-finalist in the 400 m at the Athens Olympics of 2004, also taking part in the 4 × 400 m relay team that finished 4th. In the 2005 European Under 23 Championships she took the silver medal, losing individual gold by a hundredth of a second. She also won silver in the 4 × 400 m relay.
After reaching the semi-final at the 400 m at the 2005 World Championships in Athletics she won a bronze medal in the women's 4 × 400 m relay together with Lee McConnell, Donna Fraser and Nicola Sanders.
Ohuruogu won a gold medal for England in the 400 m at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in a personal best time of 50.28 seconds, beating favourite Tonique Williams-Darling in both the semi-final and the final.
She was banned for a year for missing three out-of-competition drug tests; one in October 2005 and then a further two in June 2006.
Within 24 days of the end of her year-long competition suspension she returned to win the gold medal at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka. Fellow British athlete, Nicola Sanders won silver with Novlene Williams of Jamaica third. Ohuruogu won all three of her individual races at the world championships – her heat, her semi-final and the final.