Africa's 100m record holder, Olympic bronze medallist, indoor 60m world champion, and one of the fastest men on the planet, Nigerian-born Olusoji Fasuba has just completed nine months of training to become a logistics specialist in the Royal Navy.
The 28 year old Olusoji retired from professional running and joined the Navy last May to provide a more settled life for his wife and baby daughter. He's married to 400m runner Ngozi Nwokocha, and they have seven-month-old daughter Annabelle. As a runner, Olusoji set an African record in the 100m of 9.85 seconds, just 0.27 of a second slower than the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt.....more pictures inside
Now living in Plymouth with his family the young sailor said: "I've had a very good career in athletics and been there with the big boys, but I was looking to the future and wanted to settle.“My father used to work for the Nigerian Navy, so from a young age it was all about the Navy. Some of my friends are serving in the British Army and tried to persuade me to join, but for me it had to be the Royal Navy.
“Training has been my way of life for a long time. Growing up in Nigeria discipline is very strict, so that aspect of being in the Navy wasn't really a shock to me. It was tough mentally sometimes and I did question myself about what I was doing, but ultimately I wanted to do it for myself and my family."
During his specialist training Fasuba was appointed the role of class leader. He played for Raleigh's football team and lists a week's leadership training at Tal-y-bont in Wales as one of the highlights of his course.
In his new role Fasuba will be responsible for ensuring that his unit has everything it needs to operate, ordering and storing millions of pounds worth of equipment, from engineering parts to stationery.
He said:
"All my life has been about sport, so I wanted to try something different. We were under a lot of pressure to learn a lot during our specialist training and I surprised myself in being able to understand it all.
“In this job I'll be working in an office or a storeroom and I'll be able to keep my athletics as a hobby. I'm excited about my first posting as I've never had what you would call a regular job and I'm looking forward to actually working in a stores department."
For the future Fasuba is hoping to complete a full career in the Royal Navy and maybe transfer to the Officer Corps at some stage.
He is keen to apply for British citizenship and although his priority is his new career and his family, he hopes one day to equal his feat of winning the 60-metre world indoor championships for Nigeria by taking the title for Britain.
The junior sailor has been training at weekends in Plymouth where he has been giving running tips to the younger generation.
Elsewhere on the sporting front, Olusoji latest goal is to become a member of the Royal Navy bobsleigh team and he will soon be travelling to Austria for his first try out at the Inter-Service games.
Olusoji said:
“As soon as I saw the film Cool Runnings, I thought: ‘I could do that.’ I've never done it before and I may not like it so I need to build my love for the sport and I've given myself five chances to see how things go.
“I've looked at the statistics and I know I can do it. My ambition is to represent Britain at bobsleigh at a Winter Olympics."
