Coaches depart after visa hitches, Brume eyes historic medal in Belgrade

[FILES] Ese Brume

Olympics long jump bronze medalist, Ese Brume, is seeking to become the only third Nigerian athlete to win medals in all three global athletics championships, including the Olympics.

Two Nigerian coaches, Seigha Porbeni and Endurance Ojokolo, who could not travel with the athletes on Wednesday due to delay in securing their visas, eventually left Lagos for Belgrade yesterday evening alongside President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Tonobok Okowa.

Okowa told The Guardian, yesterday, that the AFN had to reschedule the flight for the two coaches from Wednesday to yesterday to enable them to meet up with the athletes in Belgrade.

Brume, who will compete in her first World Indoor Championships, has won medals at the World outdoor championships (bronze in 2019) and the Olympics (bronze in Tokyo), and is now hoping to join Glory Alozie and the late Sunday Bada as athletes who have won medals at the world athletics championships indoors and outdoors, as well as the Olympics.

Alozie won silver at the World Indoor championships in 1999 in Maebashi (60m hurdles) and at the outdoor version later that year in Seville Spain (100m hurdles) before going to win another silver medal at the Olympics and in the process became the first Nigerian to win medals in all three global sporting fiesta.

Bada followed suit a few days later after helping the men’s 4x400m relay team to win gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 to add to the three World Indoor championships medals he won (1993,1995 and 1997) and a 4x400m relay bronze at the World outdoor championships in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1995.

Now, Brume seems to be following Alozie’s pattern with her bronze medal feats in Doha in 2019 and Tokyo in 2021.

The 25-year-old