Echoes of delight are still rolling through the rank and file of Nigeria’s athletics terrain, following the emergence of Ruth Usoro as a women’s long jump silver medalist at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
However, Sports247 can report that not many of them will remember that just five years ago, she was denied the opportunity of competing on the biggest stage of global competition, when officials of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) bungled drug tests for the country’s athletes to the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Usoro was one of ten highly-promising Nigerian athletes, along with Favour Ofili, who were barred from competing in their respective events because AFN did not schedule them for prerequisite out of competition drugs tests.
However, while Ofili never fully recovered from the ordeal and decided to dump Nigeria, after another error ruled her out of the next Olympics in 2024, Usoro soldiered on and remained loyal to her country.
Although she could not excel at the Games of 2024 in Paris, France, she continued waxing strong and eventually received her due compensation in Glasgow, Scotland, with a silver medal, which she rightfully described as ‘a miracle.’
That might be an understatement, considering that another error by the AFN almost knocked her out, as only Ese Brume had been registered to compete for Nigeria in women’s long jump, but the defending champion had to be replaced when she got injured.
Next in line as Brume’s replacement should have been Nigeria’s new national champion, Prestina Ochonogor, so the AFN ‘smartly’ submitted both names to the Glasgow Games’ organisers as replacements for the injured first choice.
Sadly for Ochonogor, only one replacement was allowed … and that paved the way for what turned out to be a truly ‘miraculous silver medal’ for Usoro, who admitted as she climbed the podium that it was a very emotional turnaround of fortunes for her.
Usoro added that another aspect to the ‘miracle’ was that, before heading to Scotland, she was not anywhere close to the winning mark that fetched her second place in the tight women’s long jump contest.
Sports247 reports further that her feat in Glasgow extended the upward swing for Usoro, who produced a season’s best of 6.87m (+2.7) on her very first attempt to secure the podium finish, before fouling on her next two attempts, but her opening effort was enough to keep her in second place.
It was a massive turnaround for the 28-year-old Usoro, who finished sixth at the 2022 Games in Birmingham City, England, but the lass, who was born in Akwa Ibom State and raised in Lagos, confirmed why she continues waxing strong, following her breakthrough at Texas Tech University, USA.
The leggy athlete, who competes in both long jump and triple jump, made history in 2021 by becoming the first Nigerian athlete to qualify for both events at the Olympics, and a year later joined Ese Brume as the first Nigerian duo to reach a World Championships long jump final together.
As a student at Texas Tech University, on February 26th, 2021, Usoro jumped 6.82m to meet the qualifying standard for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, marking her second-best jump in the world for the season at the time and third best on the Nigerian all-time list alongside Brume.
On June 12th, 2021, she leapt 14.19m to win the triple jump at the 2021 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field, Eugene, Oregon, USA, and won the NCAA indoor title in 2021.
Her personal best triple jump of 14.50 in Texas met the qualifying standard for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the triple jump and placed her in the top 10 in the world for the year, but she was ruled out among 10 Nigerian athletes due to non-compliance with out-of-competition drug testing requirements.
In 2023, she won gold in triple jump at the African Games and competed in the same year at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, then competed in long jump at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she placed tenth.
Despite her rising profile since she burst onto the scene in 2021, Usoro was modest enough and never prided herself on being the lass to look up to, especially as she ranked behind current national champion, Prestina Ochonogor, heading into the Commonwealth Games.
Ironically, while Ochonogor was ruled out of the competition in Glasgow after the organisers refused to allow Nigeria to make two replacements for injured Brume, Usoro made the best of her opportunity to finally compete on the global stage by jumping into the record books.
“Six weeks ago, I wasn’t where I am now. I wasn’t close to a 6.7m. It’s a miracle,” said Usoro, who upgraded from no show at Tokyo 2020 to sixth place at Birmingham 2022 in England and now silver in Glasgow, Scotland.
