Nigeria’s duo of Oluwatobiloba Amusan and Ese Brume have both been named in the entry list for the Lausanne Diamond League meet on July 6th, in what will be their first ever appearance at the prestigious Athletics series.
This will be a huge step up for both athletes who have qualified for the World Championships in August, and having shown great promise since the Rio 2016 Olympics where they put up remarkable performances in their respective events, they will be hoping to go a step further this year.
For Amusan who this year won the NCAA title with a Personal Best (PB) of 12.57s, she will hope to have a good outing in the Swiss city. However, she will have to go against World Leader Jasmin Stowers (12.47s) and Nia Ali (12.52s) who have run faster than the Nigerian this year.
On the part of Brume who has an SB of 6.64m, this competition will afford her the opportunity of knowing how far she has come since finishing 5th in Brazil, having earlier jumped a PB of 6.83m in Akure before the Olympics.
Although Brume would be competing against more established names like Olympic champion Tianna Bartoletta, and other stronger competitors like Ivana Spanovic, Shara Proctor and Darya Klishina, this will be a valuable learning curve for the Nigerian athlete.
Blessing Okagbare, Tosin Oke and Doreen Amata are the only Nigerian athletes to have made appearances in the Diamond League in recent years. It is certainly a good development to see more Nigerian athletes join the fold.
