Highly promising female long jumper, Prestina Ochonogor says she is still heartbroken and in distress, after her ambition of competing at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, was scuttled by a mix-up in Nigeria’s registration process.
Sports247 gathered that Ochonogor felt, being Nigeria’s current national champion, she should have been allowed to compete ahead of Ruth Usoro, who was brought in to replace injured Ese Brume, but the organisers refused to allow a second representative from Nigeria.
Ironically, the Athletics Fderation of Nigeria (AFN) had reportedly submitted Brume’s name alone for the competition, thereby allowing only one replacement by the Games’ officials, which meant Ochonnogor could not compete alongside Usoro, who went on to win a silver medal.
Ochonogor was disappointed and devastated, after the Games’ organisers rejected Nigeria’s request to include her in the event, which she automatically qualified for, after winning the women’s long jump event during Nigeria’s national trials in June at Yaba College of Technology Sports Complex in Lagos.
She won the contest with a leap of 6.57m in the absence of Brume, who is still Nigeria’s national record holder, but Ochonogor’s expectation of an automatic spot on competition day in Glasgow fell short, even after she got official vests with numbers.
The embittered athlete took to social media to vent her spleen and reeled out a series of questions, while seeking answers to the chain of events that led to her missing the competition, despite winning the national trials and getting materials that indicated she normally would compete.
Ochonogor inquired: “Please tell me, is it possible to have six bib numbers in one competition and still you can’t compete? Or is it possible to get a bib number without registration? My heart is broken and bleeding. So much sacrifice, yet being treated like nothing.”
However, Sports247 gathered that the Glasgow Games’ technical delegate, Chris Cohen had earlier officially written to Team Nigeria’s contingent to inform them that Ochonogor’s name could not be added to the list because she was not included in the country’s original submission.
The letter stated: “After a check of the final confirmation forms, it was seen that Prestina Ochonogor had been added by Nigeria to the Women’s Long Jump (but) Nigeria has already made a late athlete replacement for this event.
“Countries are not allowed to add more athletes to events, as only one athlete was entered originally and therefore only one athlete is allowed to compete in this event. For this reason, Ochonogor will not be allowed to enter the women’s long jump.”
Sports247 reports further that independent observers are now wondering why the Nigerian team officials registered only Brume earlier instead of adding Ochonogor, with insinuations arising that technical buffs of the athletics federation might have thought the national champion did not have a chance of winning a medal.
That also, apparently, informed their choice of Usoro to replace Brume, considering that she won gold in the triple jump at the 2023 African Games and, as a student at Texas Tech University, on February 26th, 2021, she jumped 6.82m to meet the qualifying standard for long jump at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, but AFN’s bungled out-of-competition drugs tests kept her out of the competition.
It was the second-best jump in the world for the season and third-best on the Nigerian all-time list alongside Brume, which Usoro appeared to validate by winning silver at Glasgow 2026 with 6.87 metres; two years after competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she placed tenth overall.
Another postulation is that AFN opted to compensate Usoro for the Tokyo 2020 setback, thereby registering her ahead of Ochonogor, who won long jump gold at the 2026 Western Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships in Spokane, after placing third in the 60m sprint.
She also qualified for the 2026 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships, placing fifth overall and then reached the 2026 NCAA Outdoor Championship, before which she had been a bronze medalist when aged 17 years at the 2023 African Games in Accra, with a personal best of 6.67m.
