Athletics: Eseme begins season in Portugal with stellar performance.

The 32-year-old sprinter registered the domineering season opener after posting a comfortable 6.62 seconds run to emerge as winner of the competition’s division one series last Sunday February 8.

The Sporting Lisbon athlete who posted similar performances across the 2025 season, secured the victory after beating seven other athletes in the race.

Among the athletes were 26-year-old sprinter André Prazeres who was a strong part of the Portuguese team that won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Athletics Relays Championships in Poland and one-time Portuguese national champion, 22-year-old Paulo Pereira.

Pundits say the stellar performance in the domestic season opener leaves the Cameroonian in line to register a strategically scintillating campaign at the domestic level this year. 

This, they argue, further places the football goalkeeper-turned sprinter on a comfortable position to record major successes at the international level where he is tipped to compete in multiple competitions this year, including the forthcoming 2026 African Athletics Championships.

The mouthwatering showing in the Portuguese national championship is not the only ground-breaking result that he has registered since he started competing in the 2026 calendar on January 25.

During the January 25 season-opening run, Eseme ranked second in the first round of the men’s 60m series at the Meeting de Paris Indoor competition in Paris in France. 

He did the race in a Cameroon national record 6.55 seconds and posted a 6.64 seconds performance in the final to emerge as the overall winner.

The Cameroonian followed up the showing with similar mouthwatering results across the Elite Indoor Track Miramas Meeting in Paris before winning both of his races in the 60m series at the Init Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe meeting of the more-fancied World Athletics Indoor Gold Tour in Germany. 

He set a new national record in race one of the February 8 competitions after posting a mouthwatering 6.53 seconds to record a season best. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3712 of Monday February 23, 2026