TEAM Nigeria won their second medal at the Tokyo Olympics and the first in athletics on Tuesday.
Ese Brume finished third in the women’s long jump event to clinch bronze and claim Nigeria’s first Olympics medal in Athletics in 13 years.
Athletics used to be the country’s major source of medals, but there has been a drought since Beijing 2008 when Blessing Okagbare also won women’s long jump silver and the women’s 4×100m team won silver.
Indeed, the only individual gold medal Nigeria has ever won at the Olympics was in women’s long jump, Chioma Ajunwa’s stunning triumph at the Atlanta 1996 Games when she went in as an underdog.
Brume, who broke Ajunwa’s African record of 7.12m in May with a 7.17m leap, did 6.97m on Tuesday in Tokyo to win bronze.
Germany’s Malaika Mihambo won the gold medal with a personal season’s best leap of 7.00m, while United States of America veteran Brittney Reese won silver with the same 6.97m as Brume but with a superior countback.
Brume started the day in the gold medal position with her first jump, which was the 6.97m that she eventually earned bronze with.
Her second attempt was 6.67m, followed by a no jump, then 6.88m, a no jump and her final jump was 6.90m.
Reese, on the other hand, did not fault in any if her six attempts, starting with 6.60m and reaching her peak 6.97m in her third jump.
Interestingly, Brume was on course for silver until Mihambo’s sixth and final attempt.
The German’s best jump before her sixth was her second (6.95m) which would have earned her bronze, but she leapt to 7.00m in her final attempt to win gold, after two no jumps in her fourth and fifth attempts.
In the men’s 200m, Nigeria’s Divine Oduduru qualified for the semi-finals.
Oduduru, who was disqualified from the 100m semi-finals after a false start, finished second in Heat 1 in a time of 20.36 seconds, to ease into the semi-finals.
Also on Tuesday, Norway’s Karsten Warholm shattered the men’s 400m hurdles world record, winning the gold medal in 45.94 seconds.
