Brume Leaps Back into Reckoning, Wins Jamaican Invitational

  • Okagbare places second in 200m behind home-girl, Shericka Jackson

Former Commonwealth Games long jump champion, Ese Brume, leapt back into international reckoning on Saturday at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica where she jumped 6.82m to win the event at the Jamaica International Invitational Track and Field Meet.

The Nigerian’s jump is a personal Season’s Best, her third best career jump and a new meeting record.

Brume had been touted as the able successor to compatriot Blessing Okagbare-Ighoteguonor after jumping 6.56m to win the Commonwealth Games title in Glasgow, Scotland, 40 long years after Nigeria first triumphed in the event.

She followed up with an improved 6.81m two years later to place fifth at the Rio Olympics.

That leap re-affirmed her status as the next queen of the jumps in Nigeria nay Africa after finishing first in African top list for the year (6.83m) ahead of  South Africa’s Lynique Beneke (6.78m) and Okagbare-Ighoteguonor (6.73m).

She actually held five of the best 10 jumps by Africans that year.

Brume however disappeared from reckoning, both locally and internationally in 2017 when she was expected to be the first Nigerian woman long jumper to make it to the podium in the event at the IAAF flagship event, the World Championships in London.

Although she was active in the circuit, jumping a 6.74m personal season’s best to come second behind Okagbare-Ighoteguonor in the African top list for the year, she could not replicate the performance of the previous year when she leapt above 6.80m (6.81 and 6.83m) twice and 6.60m and above (6.67m) twice.

The pretty-faced, two-time African champion seems to have rediscovered her form with her 6.82 performance in Kingston, Jamaica which has catapulted her to fifth on the world top list for the year.

Meanwhile,  Okagbare-Ighoteguonor (22.66) placed second behind home girl, Shericka Jackson (22.55) in the women’s 200m with USA’s Francis Phyllis third in 22.76.

The Nigerian tops the world list with the 22.04 African record she ran in Abilene, Texas on March 24 this year.

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