Commonwealth Games: Eseme wins historic gold medal for Cameroon.

He defeated Australian athlete Lachlan Kennedy who clocked a personal best 9.85 seconds. Nigeria’s Akinsola Ajayi who placed third on the final standing after doing the race in 9.90 seconds.

The performance in the final came after a similar stellar showing by Eseme in the semifinals where he achieved yet another personal best and set another national record time of 9.89 seconds.

His dominant win in the final had him ending Cameroon’s six-day wait to secure its medal since the competition flagged off on Thursday July 23, Team Cameroon having struggled since the competition started.

Eseme described the achievement as a befitting compensation for the hard work that he has put over the years.

“Everyone was waiting for the gold, and I gave them the gold. I gave myself the gold. I gave Cameroon the gold, I gave all my fans the gold, and I am happy about that,” the sprinter said after powering his way through to victory on the rainy Tuesday night in Glasgow.

“I feel so great now because it’s an inspiration, not just for me, but for the younger generation as well. It shows them that we from Cameroon are capable of doing it. We just have to be in the right conditions, set our objectives high, and work towards achieving them,” Eseme who ranked 10th in the men’s 100m category in the 2022 Commonwealth Games added.

Following the successfully appearance in the 100m category, Eseme is expected to return to action this Thursday with eyes on securing what could be Cameroon’s second medal in the competition.

The runner will compete in the men’s 200m category on Thursday night. He qualified for the semifinals of the category yesterday after finishing his race in the event ranking second in heat four. The reigning African Games and La Francophonie Games 100m champion did the race in 20:74 seconds.

Challenging campaign for Team Cameroon

Eseme’s victory in the men’s 100m event and his qualification for the semifinals of the 200m event changed the narrative of what had hitherto been a very nightmarish campaign for Cameroon in the ongoing Games.

Over six of the 21 athletes that Team Cameroon fielded in the competition have so far been eliminated without them being able to win a medal. The nightmarish run began when three Cameroonian para-powerlifters got eliminated in the opening days of the competition.

Long jump stars Appolinaire Yinra and Raymond Nkwemy were eliminated in the preliminary phase after they both struggled in the preliminary phase and failed to make the final of the event.

Runner Emmanuel Itoungue missed out on his races in the first rounds of the men’s 100m and 200m categories due to an injury. 

Weightlifter Onana Tanga Daniel finished fourth on the final classification in the men’s 94kg category yesterday despite putting up what was hailed as a highly-spirited performance. 

He ranked behind Malaysia’s Nor-Ghazali MSB who won the gold medal allocated in the category, and the duo of Bellemarre Alex and Saxton Oliver Riley from Canada and Australia who bagged a silver and bronze medal respectively. 

“The competition went well. It’s true that we didn’t quite achieve what we targeted,” Onana Tanga stated at the end of the competition.

“During the snatch, I started to doubt myself, and that hesitation ended up costing me. But the best is yet to come. I have no real regrets because we gave it everything we had,” he added. 

Runner Linda Angounou Ngoyaka was disqualified for disciplinary reasons and failed to compete in her race in the women’s 400m hurdles category due to the sanctions.

This was despite the fact that the 2026 African Athletics Championships bronze medalist entered the Glasgow competition as one of the overall favorites to secure a medal in the category. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3862 of Wednesday July 29, 2026