• Status: Active
• Height: 183cm (6’0”)
• Weight: 67kg (~148lbs)
• Age: 26
• Birthday: October 3, 1998
• Nationality: German
• Events: Shot put
• Personal Bests:
  • Shot put: 20.27m

Yemisi Ogunleye Honours

• 2024 Olympic Champion
• 2024 World Indoor Silver medalist

Yemisi Ogunleye Career

Yemisi Ogunleye trains in Mannheim, Germany, with the club MTG. She rose to international prominence in 2023, and her young career is capped with a 2024 Olympic Gold medal from Paris.

As a youth, Ogunleye tried many different events, including the long jump, triple jump, and hurdles. From about 2015, at the age of 16, she specialized in the shot put and also occasionally threw the discus.

Ogunleye continued to improve in the event through her teenage years and early 20s until breaking through in 2023, qualifying for the World Athletics Championship in Budapest with a season best and personal best of 19.31 meters, more than a meter improvement from her best of 18.14 meters from the year before.

She would set another personal best in the preliminary round at the World Championships with a throw of 19.44 meters. She finished second in her qualifying group and tenth in the final with a throw of 18.97 meters.  

Breakout and Olympic Championship

Ogunleye had already established herself as one of the top shot putters in the world the year before, but in 2024, she would excel on the world’s largest stage. She opened her season with another personal best of 19.57 meters. This throw would qualify her for the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. She won her first World Championship medal at this meet, throwing yet another personal best of 20.19 meters and finishing second behind Canada’s Sarah Mitton.

Going into the Olympics, two women had already thrown farther than Ogunleye. Canada’s Sarah Mitton had thrown 20.68 meters while the Dutch thrower Jessica Schilder had tossed 20.33 meters. The defending World Champion Chase Ealey (now Jackson) also had a season’s best only a few centimeters behind Ogunleye.

Ogunleye cruised through the qualifying round with a best of 19.24 meters to win her section.

After scratching her first throw in the final, she landed a 19.55-meter toss in the second round. She would improve on this throw with a 19.73-meter toss in round five to put her into the lead, and then sealed victory with a 20.00-meter throw in the final round. Surprisingly, none of the favorites threw over 19.00 meters. Maddi Wesche took home silver with a personal best of 19.86 meters, and China’s Song Jiayuan took home the bronze with 19.32 meters.