Colourful Ese Brume sends Olympics medal warning

Posted : 10 August 2023

As Nigeria continues to search for Olympics medal, one of her brightests is Ese Brume, the 27-year-old long jumper who has been rulling in the track events.

Ese Brume who holds one of the highest titles in Nigeria is a Member of Order of Niger (MON), a prestigious honour bestowed on her by the administration of Mohammadu Buhari after her stellar performance at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham where she won gold medal.

Ese Brume, born Jan. 20, 1996 is a specialist in long jump following the footsteps of Nigeria's great long jumpers such as Chioma Ajunwa who leaped into Olympic stardom in 1996 in the U.S.A., tagged Atlanta 96.

Ese Brume is the current Commonwealth Champion in Long Jump with a leap of 7.17m to overshadow her previous Commonwealth Games record set in Glasgow with 6.43m.

Ese Brume to her credit is also a three-time African Senior Champion in Long Jump with a personal best of 7.17m (23 ft, 6+1/4).

Beyond this, Ese Brume holds Commonwealth Games record, African Junior record, a five-time African junior champion in athletics, and also, she is a two-time medalist at the World Athletics Championship and to crown it all, she holds an Olympics bronze medal, a feat she secured at the last Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Ughelli Delta State-born Ese Brume shot into the limelight in 2012 during the Nigerian Athletics Meet alongside other junior athletes such as Emmanuel Dakolo and Fabian Edoki.

At the Nigeria Athletics Meet, Ese Brume was placed sixth in the long jump event in 2012.

At the 18th National Sports Festival (NSF) Eko 2012, Ese Brume set a personal best of 6.53m (21 ft, 5 in) to place second behind another Nigerian great sprinter, Blessing Okagbare.

By 2013, Ese Brume was already showing glimse of good things to come in her blossoming career especially at the African Junior Athletics Championships held at the German Comarmond Stadium in Bambous, Mauritius from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1, where she won the long jump event with a strong leap of 6.33m.

Ese Brume also took silver medal in the Triple Jump and in the same competition, she was part of the party of Team Nigeria 4×100 meters relay team gold medalist.

Ese Brume was placed fourth in the individual effort in the 100m.

At the next African Junior Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa, Ese Brume successfully gained her long jump title and was more successful as she successfully added the Triple Jump and 4×100m and a bronze medal in the 100m.

May 2014, Ese Brume ran another personal best of 11.84secs in 100m and eclipsed it with an African Junior record in Long Jump with 6.60m (21 ft 7+3/4 in) to win the Warri Relays.

Later, Ese Brume improved to 6.68 m (21 ft 10+3⁄4 in) at the Nigerian Championships to win her first national title.

Ese Brume was chosen for the discipline at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics but, having flown to Eugene, Oregon just a day before competing, she performed poorly and was bottom of the qualifers.

The Nigerian junior women's relay team also did not fare well, being eliminated in qualifers.

Just five days later, she represented Nigeria at the 2014 Commonwealth Games while Blessing Okagbare opted to compete in the sprints, Ese Brume remains Nigeria's sole entrant for the event. The 18-year-old excelled in the Commonwealth Games long jump, clearing 6.56 m (21 ft 6+1⁄4 in) in the final to win the gold medal.

Ese Brume dedicated her victory to Emmanuel Uduaghan, Delta State's governor who invested in track and field infrastructure and support in the region. Okagbare, who won a Commonwealth sprint double, was also a product of the system, and Brume stated that she was inspired by the older athlete's achievements.

As a result of her own medal feats, Brume was given an athletic scholarship to study in the United States, with local government support.

In 2016, Ese Brume secured qualification standard three months ahead of next Olympics in Rio Olympics with a personal record at the Akure Golden League.

Same year, Brume headed to Durban for the African Athletics Championships as the African leader in her event. She successfully defended her title from the previous championships.

Brume qualified for the Rio Olympics long jump final as the third-best athlete in her pool, this placed her in sixth position going into the final of the event.

Brume eventually ended the competition in fifth place, leaping a distance of 6.81 meters which was just 2 centimeters shy of her personal record, which she had set earlier in the year.

In 2018, Ese Brume holds a double Turkish Universities champion at the Turkey Koç Fest Universities Sports Games, representing her university, Eastern Mediterranean University where she set a meeting record, and African lead of 6.82 m at the first leg of the 2018 World Challenge series in Kingston, Jamaica.

This mark remained the best jump by an African athlete until the 2018 African Championships in Athletics in Asaba. There, she increased her African leap by a centimeter to win her third consecutive African senior title.

Ese Brume represented Africa at the Ostrava Continental Cup, where she placed fourth and also same year, Brume defended her title at the 19th Nigerian National Sports Festival in Abuja, in a new festival record of 6.62 meters.

In 2019, Ese Brume was shortlisted as a nominee in the StarQt Award in the Africa Sportswoman of the Year category where she was the only Nigerian athlete nominated in any category, the event was held in October in Johannesburg.

Ese Brume became the African Games champion in the Long Jump on 29 August 2019 as this was her first African games title and July 24, 2019, in Erzurum, she improved her personal best to 6.96m despite a very strong headwind (−2.1 m/s).[5] At the Turkish championships in Bursa on 4 August, where she broke the 7-meter barrier for the first time in her career surpassing that mark twice in the competition.

Ese Brume's jump of 7.05 m (+ 0.9 m/s) was the second-best African performance in history and later in the year, she won the bronze medal in the World Championships with a jump of 6.91m. Her medal was Nigeria's only medal at the competition and a first since 2013.

Ese Brume in 2021 broke the African Record in the long jump set by Chioma Ajunwa.

With the feat, Ese Brume decided to make it count at the 2020 Summer Olympics where she won a bronze medal in the long jump event.

The most important part of this is that her medal was Nigeria's only medal in Athletics at the event and the first Athletics medal at the Olympics since 2008.

In 2022 at the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships, Ese Brume won a silver medal in the long jump event, Nigeria's only medal in the competition. She also won another silver medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, becoming the first African to win two Long Jump medals at the World Athletics Championships.

At the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Ese Brume won gold at the women long jump event and also broke the game record in the event with her 7.00m jump. She now holds the new game record after breaking the record of Australia's Bronwyn Thompson, who previously held the record with her 6.97m jump.

Although Ese Brume has pulled out of the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, due to injury, Nigeria will still want to count on her to surpass her Tokyo 2020 Olympics medal haul where she won bronze medal.

Colourful Ese Brume sends Olympics medal warning

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