2. Ese Brume
If there’s been any consistent athlete for Nigeria in the last decade, it has to be Ese Brume. In fact, it is not really a contest: no Nigerian Track and Field athlete has won the number of global medals Brume has returned for Nigeria since 2014 in Glasgow when she won GOLD in women’s Long Jump.
Some people now call her the “Medal-magnet,” and there’s an avalanche of medals to back up this new alias. In the last three years, she has won four global medals at three major championships, with only a certain Malaika Mihambo, standing in her way from being a standout global champion.
In 2022, no other Nigerian athlete apart from Ese Brume won medals at the two World Championships held this year. Leaping to Silver in Belgrade, she joined Glory Alozie and late Sunday Bada as the only Nigerian athletes to have won medals for the country at the: Olympics, World Championships & World Indoor Championships.
It was her first Indoor Championships outing for Nigeria, and what better way to mark it than jumping a new PB of 6.85m with a medal to top it. She was the only medallist for Nigeria in Belgrade, ending a 14-year drought since Olusoji Fasuba won GOLD in the 60m in Valencia in 2008.
Brume has endeared herself to the Nigerian fans and that endearment was earned by a lady who has thrived against all odds, working very hard to get to the highest level of her career. To always be in the frame of winning something for your country is not to be taken lightly. It means you are in an elite league of athletes.
Last season in the United States, Brume broke Chioma Ajunwa’s 25-year-old Long Jump African Record, leaping a distance of 7.17m in Chula Vista. So when she leapt a wind-aided 7.08m (+2.5) in April to open her outdoor season, it was a good omen of how her season was shaping up.
Missing a chance for a 4th consecutive African Championships title due to travel issues with her passport, an opportunity to stretch her dominance on the continent was passed up. Brume rarely misses African tournaments; she is always delighted to represent her country with pride, and has been an astute ambassador.
No jumper has given the dominant Mihambo a good run like Brume has done. In 2022, only five women went over 7m in the women’s Long Jump, and just two of those (Mihambo and Brume) did it twice and above. Mihambo has been edging the battle, but Brume has not been rolling over to be beaten.
At the World Championships in Eugene, Mihambo was at the cusp of elimination, and while Brume led with 7.02m and looking like she would finally beat her fierce rival, the latter jumped 7.09m and from then took control. Brume would eventually settle for Silver, upgrading on the Bronze she won three years ago in Doha.
Skipping the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Brume made a winning return to the Games in Birmingham reclaiming her title with a new Games Record of 7.00m to add to Nigeria’s haul. Interestingly, it was at the 2014 Games in Glasgow that things really took off for her, when she won GOLD.
Victory in Birmingham still meant so much to her, and she ran off like someone possessed on seeing her winning mark of 7.00m on the board after the jump was measured. Having jumped a sequence of 6.96m and 6.99m, the win was secured, but seeing 7.00m lit up a different Ese we had not seen before.
This season, she got her first ever victory at a Diamond League meet, winning the women’s Long Jump by leaping a distance of 6.83m at the Brussels DL. Brume had come close on many occasions, finishing 2nd in Doha (2018) and 2nd in Eugene (2022), but she finally got her first DL win this year and will get more in 2023 with more outings.
For someone whom the commentators have erroneously pronounced her surname to connote a ‘Broom,’ she is consistently sweeping up the medals.
