Ruth Usoro On The Bowerman 2022 Women’s Preseason Watch List
Nigeria women’s triple jump record holder (14.50m) Ruth Usoro is among the 10 athletes on the 2022 Women’s Preseason Watch List for The Bowerman.
The list was released Wednesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
The Bowerman is an annual track and field award that is the highest accolade given to the year’s best student-athlete in American collegiate track and field.
Also among the 10 selected are three collegiate-record setters and five multi-time NCAA champions.
Usoro, 24, who hails from Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, is No. 2 on both the indoor and outdoor all-time collegiate lists in the triple jump.
She swept the indoor and outdoor NCAA titles to highlight an undefeated 2021 collegiate campaign in the triple jump.
Indoors she hopped, stepped and jumped 14.36m to be the only woman besides Nigerian-American Keturah Orji over 47 feet, while she went even farther outdoors with a best of 14.50m.
Her victory at the NCAA Indoor came via a last-round effort in a thrilling competition that also needed her second-best mark as a tiebreaker.
In the long jump she is tied for No. 7 all-time indoors at 6.82m.
A semifinalist for The Bowerman last year, Usoro is making her eighth appearance on the Watch List, trailing Divine Oduduru in career Red Raider appearances (10) on the Watch List.
The Nigerian will also be hoping to become the first Nigerian to be crowned a Bowerman winner after Blessing Okagbare who was a finalist in 2010 (third) and Divine Oduduru who also made the final three in 2019 (third).
