Spark Oshonaike

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Funke Oshonaike (born October 28, 1975 in Lagos ) is a Nigerian table tennis player with an international career since the 1990s. She won several medals at African continental tournaments, and to date (2017) she has participated in 14 world championships and six Olympic Games .

Career

Funke Oshonaike was born in Lagos. She still has eight siblings.

She achieved numerous successes at the African Championships , in which she participated four times. She won gold six times, namely in 1990 in doubles with Abiola Olawunmi Odumosu, in 1992 in singles and with the Nigerian team, in 2002 in singles and in mixed games with Segun Toriola and in 2016 in singles after a surprising final victory over Dina Meshref, who is almost 20 years younger . There are also four silver medals. She achieved eleven wins at the African Games , in which she was represented four times. In 1991, 1995, 1999 and 2003 she won the team and the doubles competition each time, in 1991 the doubles with Abiola Olawunmi Odumosu, then with Bose Olateju Kaffo. In 1999 and 2003 she won in singles, in 2003 in mixed with Monday Merotohun. In 2001 she won the African Cup in singles.

To date (2017), Funke Oshonaike has been nominated 14 times for world championships (1991, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017), but never made it into the Near medal ranks. She had also had no chance at the six Olympic Games since 1996 . At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, she led her Olympic team as the flag bearer.

In the 1990s, Funke Oshonaike played for four years for the Italian club GSCagliari, in 1998 she moved to Germany to the Hamburg club SC Poppenbüttel. Here she currently (2019) plays in the third Bundesliga. She married in the early 2000s and has two children.

Funke Oshonaike previously earned her living as a photo model and today as an employee at Otto-Versand .

Web links

literature

  • Lennart Wehking: On the way to legend , table tennis magazine , 2020/7 page 22f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rio 2016 Olympic Games # TABLE TENNIS - PLAYER BIOGRAPHIES WOMEN , page 33 ( Memento from December 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on September 10, 2017)
  2. ↑ a b DTS magazine , 1998/7 page 21
  3. ↑ Team reports for the 2019/20 season on www.mytischtennis.de, accessed on September 14, 2019.
  4. ↑ Neha Aggarwal: Not just Serena, Nigeria's table tennis star Olufunke Oshonaike competed too, while seven months pregnant , article from April 25, 2017 on ittf.com (accessed September 10, 2017)
personal data
SURNAME Oshonaike, spark
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oshonaike, Olufunke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nigerian table tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Lagos