World U20 Championships, Lima 2024: Can Ochonogor leap into history books where Ajunwa and Okagbare faltered?

Paris 2024 Olympics long jump finalist, Prestina Ochonogor will be seeking to make history as the first Nigerian long jumper to win a World Athletics U20 title when she files out for the event on the opening day of competition (August 27) at the Estadio Atletico de la Videna in Lima, Peru, looking to jump her way into the final.

The final will hold at the same venue the next day and the 18-year-old will be aiming to do what her very illustrious predecessors, Chioma Ajunwa and Blessing Okagbare failed to do which was to jump to the podium as the gold medal winner.

Ajunwa was at the 3rd edition of the Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, but her 6.46m opening round jump was only good enough for a fifth-place finish. The policewoman would later go on to win a gold medal in the event at the Olympics in 1996 and a silver at the World indoor championships the following year in Paris.

Okagbare, also an Olympic medalist in the event (silver in 2008) and another silver at the World Athletics Championships in 2013, did not even make the final at the U20 level two years before making the podium at the Olympics.

The only Nigerian to have won a medal in the event was Esther Aghatise who leapt to a bronze medal finish in 2002 in Kingston, Jamaica.

Ochonogor now has a date with history and on current form, she is number two in the top list of athletes who are U20 in the event this year with the 6.79m she jumped at the MTN CHAMPS Grand Final at the UJ Esuene Stadium in Calabar at the end of April.

She is only bettered by Sophia Beckmon (6.86m) who is in the USA team to the Championships.

The Nigerian will also be challenged by Irish-Nigerian, Elizabeth Ndudi who is third in the top list, 6.68m. The 19-year-old was born in Dublin, Ireland to a Nigerian father and a Dutch-Irish mother.

Ndudi is also in the Irish team to the event.