Dung is 2009 Nigerian Sportsperson of the Year

Nigerian marathon runner, Janet Dung from Plateau State won the Nigerian "Sportsperson of the Year award" at the The Future Awards 2010 held at the Shell Hall of the Muson Centre in Lagos on Sunday.

The 23-year-old, who is a three-time winner of the Nigerian category (women) at the Obudu International Mountain Race, beat the likes of Osaze Odemwingie (Football) Ikechukwu Uche (Football) Fatima Abinu (Lawn Tennis) Obafemi Martins (Football) to the award.

Dung, a final year high school student in Sot Gwang in Plateau State, started competing at the Obudu Mountain Race in 2007 and has won the national women's title since then - this year with a 59.56 minutes clocking that placed her 11th in the overall standing.

She told NEXT, a national newspaper in Lagos, that without athletics she can not afford to go school because she's responsible for her own welfare and that of her family - her parents and two siblings - who look up to her.

She said: "Combining athletics with my school work is disturbing my academics but I use it to manage because if I don't run, there is no way I can go to school.

"That is how I get money to go to school so I cannot stop it. I won a car in the First MTN People Police Marathon in 2008 though it wasn't given to me.

"But I also won another one this year and sold it because I have a brother in school and I have to pay his school fees."

"My parents are not complaining because they know that I'm good at what I do. My father is a teacher but my mother is a housewife," she added.