Mariam Usman

Mariam Usman (born 9 November 1990) is a Nigerian weightlifter. She competes in the women's +75 kg class, where she is a four-time African Champion and gold medalist at the Commonwealth Games. She also won a bronze medal at the 2011 World Weightlifting Championships and has competed in three editions of the Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal in 2008. Mariam Usman has been confirmed as the first Nigerian athlete to compete in the inaugural Enhanced Games.

Biography Usman was born in Kaduna, Nigeria and took up weightlifting as a way to combat harassment that she received from boys. She debuted on the international scene in 2007, where she took silver in all three categories of the +75 division at the 2007 All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria and finished 9th at the World Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She then qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China by winning the +75 kg class at the 2008 African Weightlifting Championships in Strand, South Africa.

At the Beijing Games Usman competed in the +75 kg division and finished fifth, but was upgraded to a bronze medal after the silver and bronze medalists from that event, Olha Korobka and Mariya Grabovetskaya, were suspended in August 2016 after testing positive for prohibited substances. She came in fifth at the 2009 World Championships in Goyang, South Korea and then took silver overall at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. She improved to first at the 2011 Commonwealth and African Championships and took overall bronze at the 2011 World Championships held in Paris, France.

Senior level results