Ese Brume yesterday helped sixth-place Team Nigeria record their best ever outing at the Commonwealth Games in 72 years, after her record-breaking leap of 7.00m at the ongoing edition of the Games in Birmingham.
On course to winning the country’s 12th gold medal of the event, Brume achieved it in style, breaking the Commonwealth Games record in the women’s long jump twice, on the way to her golden performance.
Her effort ensured Team Nigeria had 12 gold, nine silver and 14 bronze medals, erasing their previous best performance at the Games in 1994 in Victoria, Canada, when the country won 11 gold 13 silver and 13 bronze.
Brume put herself in commanding position for the gold medal after her fourth attempt gave her a new Games record of 6.99m.
The 26-year-old then broke the Games record a few minutes later with her last attempt, after a leap of 7.00m to put her way ahead of the trailing crowd, to clinch Nigeria’s last gold of Day 10.
The Nigerian shrugged off competition from Australia’s Brooke Buschkuehl and Deborah Acquah (Ghana), who both finished in second and third positions with leaps of 6.95m and 6.94m.
Fresh from setting a new world record and turning the new world champion at the World Athletics Champion in Oregon, hurdler Tobi Amusan set the tone as she claimed one of the three gold medals Team Nigeria needed to win to shatter their performance of 28 years ago.
Amusan successfully defended the 100m hurdles title she won in 2018 in Gold Coast, Australia to become the first Nigerian athlete in history to successfully defend a Commonwealth Games 100m hurdles title as she finished the final in 12.30secs to claim Nigeria’s 10th gold medal in Birmingham.
Less than two hours after claiming their 10th gold medal in Birmingham, Team Nigeria women’s relay team, led by Amusan, entered the history books after winning the country’s first-ever gold medal in the 4X100m women’s event in the competition.
Competing at the sold-out Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, Nigerian quartet Amusan, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha achieved the feat in record-breaking fashion, running 42.10secs to break the barely one-month-old 42.22secs African record they set in Oregon, the USA at the World Athletics Championships.
Amusan started the historic run with a brilliant first leg, before handing over to Ofili, who ensured Nigeria maintained the advantage, before giving Chukwuma the baton.
Chukwuma ran the curve perfectly and handed over to reigning Nigerian 100m queen Nwokocha in the first position.
The 21-year-old maintained the advantage despite the threat from Great Britain’s anchor leg runner, Darly Neita, to bring home Team Nigeria’s first women’s 4x100m relay gold in their 11th attempt at the Commonwealth Games.
A notable contrast would be that unlike in 1994, the men dominated proceedings, winning nine out of the 11 gold medals at the global tournament, and winning 31 out of the total 37 medals, while the women won just six.
In this year’s edition, however, the women have grabbed all the headlines, and have rewritten the history books.
