- As Brume, Usoro, Ochonogor qualify for women’s long jump finals
World record holder, Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan has qualified for the 100-meter hurdles semi-finals in the ongoing 2024 Olympics in Paris
Running in Heat 1 on Wednesday morning, Amusan led the pack of eight athletes in a time of 12.49 seconds, followed by America’s Alaysha Johnson with 12.61 and Jamaica’s Janeek Brown qualified with 12.84 seconds.
Ranked among the favourites for the Olympic gold medal, Amusan certainly has to contend with a strong field that includes the Bahamas’ Devynne Charlton, USA’s Alaysha Johnson, World champion, Danielle Williams and reigning Olympic champion, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico.
The semi-finals will hold on Friday, August 9, while the final is slated for the penultimate day of the athletics event, Saturday, August 10.
The Nigerian poster girl, who holds the world record in the event at 12.12 seconds set in Oregon, United States, is a three-time (consecutive) Diamond League winner, two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, two-time African champion, and three-time African Games gold medallist.
The 28-year-old athlete has been in great form in the run-up to the Olympics, running a season’s best and then world leading time of 12.40s (0.9) at the Jamaican Athletics Invitational in Kingston in May
A veteran of two Olympic Games (Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, Amusan had set the indoor record for the African 60m hurdles twice in January and February while in March, she won her third consecutive African Games title in Accra, Ghana.
She also anchored Nogeria’s women’s 4x100m relay team to gold in Accra as well as the African Championships in Cameroon three months later.
Nigerian Trio Go For Broke In Women’s Long Jump
In a related development, three Nigerian athletes have qualified for the finals of the Women’s long jump event at the ongoing Olympics.
The trio are African record holder and two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Ese Brume; 26-year-old Ruth Usoro and 18-year-old Oluchi Ochonogor.
The Nigerian women all made it to the finals slated Thursday, August 8 after scaling through their respective qualification group event on Tuesday, August 6, 2024. They become part of the top 12 athletes in the event with Brume and Usoro qualifying from Group A, while Ochonogor qualified from Group B.
Brume, a bronze medallist in the event at Tokyo 2020, powered to a mark of 6.76m in her third attempt to finish second in her group behind USA’s Tara Davis-Woodhall. Her first two attempts stood at 6.44m and 6.40m which were below the qualifying mark of 6.75m.
Usoro, who won gold in the triple jump at the African Games, was also on song. She started with a huge foul in the region of 7m before delivering 6.68m to finish third in the group behind Brume.
African Games bronze medallist Ochonogor finished third in her group with a mark of 6.65m in her second attempt.
Overall, Brume finished fourth in the qualifying round, followed by Usoro in fifth, while the 18-year-old Ochonogor was seventh.
This is the first time that three Nigerians have made it to the final of an individual event at the Olympics. The last time Nigeria had more than one athlete in an athletics Olympic final was in Atlanta in 1996 when Falilat Ogunkoya and Fatimat Yusuf both made the women’s 400m final.
