Nigeria’s long jumper, Ese Brume, recorded a season’s best of 6.84m but it was not enough to get her to the podium as she finished fourth in the women’s long jump of the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, The PUNCH reports.
Serbia’s Ivana Vuleta won the event with a world lead jump of 7.14m followed by Tara Davis-Woodhall of the United States in second place with a mark of 6.91m while Romania’s Alina Rotaru-Kottmann finished third with a 6.88m mark.
Rotaru-Kottmann waited till the final round to push Brume out of medal contention to 4th place, jumping 6.88m, 4cm longer than Brume to snatch the bronze.
Brume produced an impressive 6.80m in her first attempt and improved it to 6.84m in her second attempt to stay in contention for a medal but she dropped 6.84m, 6.53m, 6.70m and 6.59m in her third, fourth, fifth and sixth attempts respectively.
Brume’s fourth-place finish at this year’s competition is the only time she failed to win a medal for Nigeria at a major championship since 2018.
Brume has been one of the country’s top performers in a decade winning a bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships before upgrading it to a silver last year in Oregon.
She also has four African titles, two gold medals from the Commonwealth Games and a bronze from the Tokyo Olympics.
Her season’s best before the final was 6.81m.
Vuleta is a new winner of the women’s long jump following the absence of Germany’s 2019 and 2022 winner Malaika Mihambo, who also won Olympic gold in Tokyo.
In the women’s 100m, Nigeria’s sole entrant 100m Rosemary Chukwuma will hope to make the final of the star-studded semi-final of the event on Monday (today) after qualifying as one of the non-automatic qualifiers with her time of 11.24secs in the heats.
Chukwuma competed in heat four against Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson who won the race in 11.06secs while the Nigerian finished fourth.
She will start the first semi-final in lane 9 on Monday (today) by 7:05pm Nigerian time.
Just like Chukwuma, Ezekiel Nathaniel will also compete in the semi-final of the men’s 400m hurdles on Monday (today) after picking one of the automatic qualifying spots, placing fourth with a season’s best of 48.47secs, which is 0.05s short of his national record of 48.42secs set last year.
That time was the eighth fastest time of the entire heats.
Aside from Brume and Chukwuma, other Nigerian athletes in action on day two of the World Championships failed to progress in their events.
Meanwhile, national champion Usheoritse Itsekiri and Seye Ogunlewe failed to make it beyond the semi-finals of the men’s 100m on Sunday.
Itshekiti posted a time of 10.19secs and finished 9th in the first semi-final while Ogunlewe ran 10.12secs to place 5th in the second semi-final.
The men’s 100m was won by USA’s Noah Lyles with a new world lead time of 9.83secs.
Also, the trio Ashley Anumba, Chioma Onyekwere and Obiageri Amaechi did not progress in the women’s discus throw.
