Ochonogor leaps to fourth longest jump on Nigerian soil

Paris 2024 Olympics finalist, Prestina Ochonogor was the cynosure of all eyes at the SWAC Pre-NSF Athletics Meet held at the Obafemi Awolowo University Sports Complex, Ile-Ife on Wednesday following her massive, personal best-setting 6.85m leap in the Long Jump event.

Ochonogor, who will be 19 in July, has been touted as the perfect and worthy successor to reigning African record holder and multiple global medalist, Ese Brume, and the tall, fair-skinned and pretty teenager proved she is indeed the next big thing in the horizon in the horizontal jump.

Her 6.85m leap is just one centimeter off the 6.86m set by World Athletics as entry standard for the 20th World Athletics Championships this September in Tokyo, Japan and it is also 14 centimeters farther than her previous 6.79m personal best set last year in Calabar.

Ochonogor has now become the third Nigerian woman to jump 6.85m and above on Nigerian soil while her mark is the fourth longest achieved by a Nigerian-on-Nigerian soil.

Blessing Okagbare holds the longest mark by a Nigerian in the event on Nigerian soil with the 6.97m she jumped to win the Nigerian Championship title in 2012 at the U.J Esuene stadium in Calabar, Cross Rivers state.

The World and Olympic long jump medalist also jumped 6.86m four years earlier, this time in Abuja which was the second longest by a Nigerian at the time behind Atlanta Olympics gold medal winner, Chioma Ajunwa’s 6.90m effort in March 1992 i n Lagos (Ajunwa had her 7m jump result cancelled).

Brume is the third Nigerian woman to hit the 6.85m mark or better on Nigerian soil when she leapt to a 6.89m finish on her way to winning the event’s title at the 2022 Nigerian Championships.

Ochonogor will now be looking to leap far and long at the World Championships in Tokyo to become the third Nigerian woman after Okagbare and Brume to mount the podium at World Athletics’ flagship event.