Should everything go according to plan, Melissa Bishop-Nriagu will step onto the Tokyo Olympics medal podium Aug. 4 — the day before her 33rd birthday — and receive the prized 800-metre medal that has eluded her.
This will be her third Olympics, which in itself is a massive achievement. As an overwhelmed novice she didn’t make it out of the first round at the 2012 London Games. Then in Rio, four years later, after having claimed silver at the 2015 world championships, she came up the finishing straight with Olympic bronze in sight, only to be overtaken by Kenya’s hard-charging Margaret Wambui.
