Two years ago, the name Ese Brume barely rang a bell. The Delta State athlete has made tremendous progress since her 2012 National Sports Festival (NSF) win and has now been catapulted into international reckoning as she goes against the world’s best athletes at the forthcoming IAAF Continental Cup this weekend, where she will be representing Team Africa in the women’s long jump.
The young athlete has garnered an enviable collection of titles and records, ranging from the African junior and senior titles, record holder in the African junior event, national champion and Commonwealth gold medallist! She finished second behind Okagbare at the National Trials in 2013 and stepped up to the position of national champion this year with a Personal Best of 6.68m in Calabar.
Brume experienced a setback at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Oregon in July, where she failed to make it out of the qualifying rounds with a jump of 5.18m, despite coming to the championship as favourite for the crown. But she blew her fans away with an impressive comeback at the Commonwealth Games, leading the field with a leap of 6.56m and brushing aside threats from her more experienced rivals.She came to the African Championships in Marrakech as the favoured athlete and she didn’t disappoint as Nigeria made it a 1-2 in the event, with team mate Chinazom Amadi finishing second with 6.40m while Brume struck gold with a jump of 6.50m.
She comes to the IAAF Continental Cup with Cameroun’s Joelle Mbumi who has a Season’s Best (SB) of 6.35m, which puts her at No. 133 on the IAAF 2014 Rankings while the Nigerian is No. 25. Brume told Making of Champions that she’s excited about competing in her first Continental Cup: “I’m looking forward to doing better at the IAAF Continental Cup where I will represent the continent. My dream is to become the world’s best”, she said.
And so she will be going against the world’s best athlete in 2014 and IAAF Diamond League winner, Tianna Bartoletta of the USA (7.02m). Canadian Christabel Nettey who won bronze behind Brume in Glasgow will also compete in the Americas team. She is No. 19 in the rankings with a distance of 6.73m. Winner of the Zurich leg of the Diamond league series and world No. 3, Eloyse Lesueur (6.92m) and European Championships silver medallist, Ivana Spanovic (No. 8 with 6.88m) will be competing as well. They will be joined by the Asian-Pacific team comprising of Australia’s Margaret Gayen (No. 31 with 6.62m) and Lu Minjia (No. 41, 6.57m).
The IAAF Continental Cup will be taking place in Marrakech, Morocco THIS WEEKEND (Sept 13th & 14th), and Ese Brume will be representing Team Africa in the women’s long jump on Sunday Sept 14th from 7.40pm!
Day 1 is LIVE on SuperSport 2 from 6.20-10.10pm. Day 2 is LIVE on SuperSport 6 from 5.20-9.10pm!
