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Tobi Amusan, Ese Bume, Chioma Onyekwere and Favour Ofili attained historical feats in the third quarter of Nigeria Athletics 2022 season.
The third quarter of the year was arguably the most historic in Nigerian athletics history, as the athletes produced exceptional performances at the World Championships in Oregon and Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
At the end of the World Championships, the athletes gave good accounts in the events represented, which paid off by winning Gold and Silver medals.
The major highlight came from Tobi Amusan’s incredible performance in the 100mH semis, where she ran an unbelievable jaw-dropping new World Record (WR) of 12.12s (0.9m/s) to improve the previous record of 12.20s, and followed that with a windy 12.06s (2.5m/s) to win the final.
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This historic feat made her become Nigeria’s first WR holder and outdoor champion, and one of the outstanding performers at the championship. Also, her WR and title-winning performance were only matched by USA’s Sydney McLaughlin in the 400mH and Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis in the Pole Vault.
Another exceptional performance was from Ese Brume, who proved once again why she is the most consistent medal-winning Nigerian athlete in the past few years. She added a shining Silver medal in the Long Jump, with a brilliant Season’s Best (SB) of 7.02m in the final.
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Consequently, she made history as the first African (male or female) to win two Long Jump medals at the World Championships, in addition to her Bronze medal from Doha 2019. Furthermore, she’s the second Nigerian and African woman after Blessing Okagbare to make the events podium at the championship.
The Long Jump final also had the presence of Ruth Usoro making her debut. Usoro finished 11th with a best leap of 6.52m but had also competed in the women’s Triple Jump heats, which made her the first Nigerian athlete to compete in the events in World Championships history.
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One more high point was in the women’s 4x100m, where the young quartet of Joy Udo-Gabriel, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma, and Grace Nwokocha, smashed the 30-year-old African Record (AR) of 42.39s with a new 42.22s, to finish fourth in the final.
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Their result came as a surprise to many considering they had only qualified as one of the fastest losers in the heats, so raising the bar so high like that in the final by setting an AR is an achievement that will remain in the history books.
Also, the quartet of Patience George, Sikiru Adeyemi, Imaobong Uko, and Samson Nathaniel finished a commendable sixth in the mixed 4x400m final.
Meanwhile, in the sprints events, though the youngsters did not make the final, their outings bode of a bright future lieing ahead, and affirms the World Athletics statement of Nigeria being a ‘Rising Sprinting Nation.’
National Champion Favour Ashe, as well as Raymond Ekevwo qualified for the 100m semi-finals clocking 10.00s and 10.17s respectively, while Udodi Onwuzuruike did not make it. The women’s event had Nwokocha as a sole entrant, and she bowed out in the semis.
In the 200m, all participants in Onwuzurike, Nwokocha, Chukwuma, and Ofili, qualified for the semi-finals, as well as Ezekiel Nathaniel in the 400mH, while the duo of Chukwuebuka Enekwechi and Chioma Onyekwere, sadly didn’t scale through from their qualifying groups in the men’s Shot Put and women’s Discus throw events respectively.
Commonwealth Games, Birmingham
The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England drew the curtain to a magnificent international season for Nigeria athletics, as several significant feats were attained by the athletes on ground-breaking notes.
Fresh from her WR outstanding performance in Oregon, Amusan continued with the momentum by successfully defending her Commonwealth title from 2018, this time smashing the Games Record (GR) of 12.65s with a new 12.30s (-0.2).
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In so doing, Amusan became the first Nigerian Track and Field athlete to successfully defend her Commonwealth title, joining Odunayo Adekuoroye (Nigerian wrestler) as the only two athletes to do so.
More gratifying about the GR triumph is that it cleared any doubts that may have arisen after running the WR of 12.12s, as the time is her second-fastest legal career time which she ran into into a headwind, and just about validates the WR showing she has mastered the art of sprint hurdling.
Amusan passed the GR performance baton to Ese Brume in the Long Jump final, where she dominated the rest of the field, and with her last jump, she leaped to a new GR of 7.00m to reclaim her Commonwealth title from 2014.
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This season, she hit the 7m twice, jumping 7.02m to finish second in Oregon. With her winning mark in Birmingham, she became the first African woman to jump four legal marks over 7.00m.
Chioma Onyekwere also had a first-time master stroke, as she became the first Nigerian woman in history to win a Commonwealth Gold medal in the Discus, with a SB throw of 61.70m.
She inspired a 1-3 finish as Obiageri Amechi also got on the podium, clinching the Bronze medal. Having won multiple continental titles, it was the first title Onyekwere won outside Africa.
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The spotlight was on Favour Ofili in the women’s 200m, who produced the best performance of her senior career at a major championships, after winning the Silver medal by running a time of 22.51s.
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Finally sealing off an unprecedented outing at the Games were the women's and men’s 4x100m relay teams, with Gold and Bronze medals respectively.
The women’s team comprising Amusan, Ofili, Chukwuma, and Nwokocha, blazed to a new AR of 42.10s, thus erasing their previous record of 42.22s set two weeks earlier at the World Championships.
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While the men’s team comprising Udodi Onwuzuruike, Ashe, Alaba Akintola, and Ekevwo, brought home the baton in a time of 38.85s.
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The last time Nigeria had two relay teams medal in the 4x100m at the Commonwealth Games was in Auckland in 1990, and thirty-two years after, these young sprinters replicated that with better placements and an AR to go with it.
Worthy mentions at the Games are Chukwuma and Nwokocha, who finished fourth and fifth apiece in the 100m final, while Onwuzuruike and Ezekiel Nathaniel placed sixth in the men’s 200m and 400mH final.
Diamond League, Zurich
Tobi Amusan capped off her historic season with a brilliant spectacle at the final leg of the Diamond League meeting in Zurich, successfully retaining her Diamond League 100mH title.
Her winning time of 12.29s (-0.3) took down Gail Devers’ long-standing 22-year-old Meeting Record (MR) of 12.39s. It also erased her Commonwealth GR second-fastest legal time of 12.30s, further buttressing that her WR in Oregon was in no way a fluke.
Amusan won all major titles this year in record-breaking times, which unsurprisingly earned her a spot in the five finalists of the World Athletics Female Athlete of the Year award.
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Considering she is the first Nigerian to achieve all her historic accomplishments this year, the 25-year-old has a good chance of winning the prestigious award, and if it happens she will be the first Nigerian in history to attain this feat.
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