Dylan Bettencourt
Nigerian hairdresser Bose Omolayo spent her days washing and styling hair until one day she was talked into lifting weights.
Omolayo had no clue about anything to do with the sport, but a customer saw potential in her. He was, perhaps, the first person to take her seriously.
At the age of 12 she had contracted polio and been paralysed from the waist down. She had been cast as an outsider in her own home.
“They told my mother to throw me away,” Omolayo told BBC Sport Africa.
“People started looking down on me. My family were looking at me like somebody who cannot make it in life, somebody who cannot give birth to children and who cannot marry.”
As a result, Omolayo left home at the age of 15, dropped out of school and began looking for work. In 2007, she became a hairdresser.
One day one of her customers, a weightlifting coach, encouraged her to take up the sport. At first, she ignored him.
“There was a man who came to my hair salon to pester me to join para-powerlifting,” Omolayo said.
Eventually, she gave in. “He asked me to follow him to the stadium to see things for myself.”
It was a revelation. “I was happy to see people like me there. I saw those carrying weights and I said to myself ‘I can also do it’.”
The 33-year-old took up the sport and in her first international event, she claimed the silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Omolayo only got better from there, claiming the gold medal in the under-79 kg category at the Rio 2016 Paralympics. She successfully defended her title in Tokyo last year.
Last December she wrote her name in the record books, setting the world record for a lift of 144 kg during the World Para Powerlifting Championships.
Omolayo has overcome adversity in several aspects of her life. She was told she could never have children, nor would she ever get married.
She is now a wife to a pastor and the mother of three children.
“I have built a house for myself and also built a church for my husband from the money I made in this sport,” she said.
Omolayo has also rekindled her relationship with her parents, despite their earlier rejection of her.
“My family who once rejected me are now happy for me. They are close to me now,” she said.
Image source: @InsideTheGames
