Ikpefan was born in Annemasse in the French Alps and has a Nigerian father and a French mother. He comes from a “sports family”: his father competed in athletics at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games, his brother plays professional rugby, and his sister plays handball and rugby and is a five-time French champion in rugby with the team Montpellier.[1]
He became French junior champion in cross-country sprint, but retired in 2011 after failing to secure a place on the French national cross-country team. Five years later he made a comeback, and in 2018 he obtained a Nigerian passport, allowing him to compete internationally for Nigeria.[2]