Melissa Bishop-Nriagu is a Canadian runner who specialises in the 800 metres. She competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and won a silver medal at the 2015 World Athletics Championships. Her World Championship medal was the first ever medal in the 800 m by a Canadian woman. Bishop-Nriagu graduated from University of Windsor and is only the third Canadian woman to achieve a time under 2:00 minutes in the 800 m. She is currently the national record holder for this distance.
Career
At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Bishop-Nriagu placed sixth in her heat and did not advance to the semi-finals. Her next major sporting event was the 2015 Pan American Games located in her home country of Canada. There, Bishop-Nriagu competed in the 800m in Toronto, in the final she ran a time of 1:59.62 to win the gold and the title of Pan Am champion. Of the home crowd Bishop-Nriagu said, "I knew the crowd was going to be loud no matter what, so I was just trying to put myself in a good position to be able to runthrough. I'm really happy it worked out. It's so nice to win a gold medalat home." Bishop-Nriagu finished 2nd in the 800 meters at the 2015 World Athletics Championships in China. In the semi-finals she set a national record while winning in 1:57.52, beating a record set by Diane Cummins which had stood for 14 years. The final, a race characterized by several pace changes up and down, saw Bishop-Nriagu in a three-way sprint to the medals where she finished in second place. After the race she said that, "It's really a dream come true. Our training has been really consistent over the last few years. This year, we've really worked on a few things and I've been waiting for the right race. I'm really happy that it came here at the championships." The 2016 Summer Olympics saw Bishop-Nriagu compete as a part of Canada's Olympic team. Bishop-Nriagu was ranked third in the world as of July 27, 2016, after posting a national record of 1:57.43 in Edmonton, on July 16. Bishop-Nriagu finished 4th in the 800 m final in Rio de Janeiro, again setting a new national record for the 800 m with a 1:57.02 finish. Caster Semenya would win gold, while Francine Niyonsaba took silver and Margaret Wambui would pass Bishop-Nriagu for bronze in the final 50 m, beating her by 0.13s. Many, including the 5th and 6th place finishers from Poland and Britain, believe that all three podium finishers are intersex and compete with elevated testosterone levels. A teary-eyed Bishop-Nriagu said after the race that "It's really kind of hard to describe this right now. This is what we work for for a decade and to be that close...this is tough."
Personal life
Born in Eganville, Ontario, Bishop-Nriagu lives by Lake Dore with her parents, Alison and Doug Bishop. Bishop-Nriagu married fellow Canadian athlete Osi Nriagu, in October 2017. The couple announced they were expecting their first child in February 2018 with the baby due in June 2018.
