There are six hours between Texas, USA, and Nigeria. In those six hours, Africa’s most populous nation receives the sun’s warm beams first. Even with instant messaging, this time difference still matters on most days.
However, on February 7, 2026, a young male athlete competing at the Texas A&M Charlie Thomas Invitational defied the difference. Kitted in Washington State University’s white and purple track uniform, he completed both laps of an excruciating 800m race, the last of seven events spread across two days. As he crossed the finish line, phone and text lines in Texas and Nigeria went off in quick succession. He had broken Nigeria’s eight-year-old Heptathlon record with over 930 points (5789). Two weeks after his performance, at the USA Track and Field Combined Events Championships in Indianapolis, he set a new record with an astonishing 5,871 points—the second fastest ever on Africa’s all-time list. Again, the six-hour time barrier dissipated. Athletics enthusiasts and non-sports media alike flooded social media with reports of his feat.
A star had declared himself to the world.
Enter Jami Schlueter.
Speaking from his Dallas, Texas apartment on a Friday evening in March, the record-breaking athlete expressed surprise at the extent of coverage in Nigerian media. He had barely finished the US Champs, and stories on his Day 1 had already made the rounds. His mom, Bola, unexpectedly saw one of these on her Google home page. Making of Champions, one of Nigeria’s top athletics media outlets, followed and posted him on Instagram, about four years after he’d done the same.
But the journey here began years earlier. Born in Germany to a Nigerian mom and German dad, Jami grew up as a ‘child of the world.’ He lived in the Middle East for a short while before moving to London. There, he completed his secondary school. The London years were his grounding years in diverse cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds that have since shaped his identity and ideologies.
It was at secondary school, Millfield, a sports boarding school in Somerset, that Jami’s journey in combined events began. Joining the track club meant he had to participate in multiple events, such as rugby, sprints, hurdles, and high jump. He actively rotated among all of these until his mom’s fortuitous discovery changed everything. “When I was 12, my mom was on the internet looking at track meets, and there was an event called the quadrathlon. You do the 100m, the long jump, the shotput, and the 800m. I’d already trained for 3 of those, we thought the 800 would make sense too ‘cause I’m a swimmer and I have some lung capacity so I could just loop my body round the track. She encouraged me to do it, and I did and won. So, the next year I did the pentathlon. I kept going up the ranks and went from quadrathlon, pentathlon, and all the way to the decathlon.” This was between 2014 and 2016.
Millfield was his first exposure to international athletes and star power. Some students already represented their countries at the junior level, and would eventually go on to have senior careers. Decorated alumni like British long jump star Jazmin Sawyers, who has won medals at the Commonwealth Games and European Championships, and his Olympian Swimming Coach, Duncan Goodhew, were also instrumental to his growth. Starved for distractions, he was able to focus strongly on athletics, he tells us.
It was also here that Jami discovered his passion for leadership, serving as Headboy, although he attributes this to his mom, or ‘Mom-ager’, who joins the call from London. “It might be the Nigerian thing of being an overachiever, as well. It’s like you get a B. Why didn’t you get an A? You get one A, where are the rest of them?” he says, smiling. Headboy-ship is an achievement that means much more, especially in terms of representation. George Floyd’s brutal murder in 2020 took place just before his ascendancy into the Headboy role, and in his way, he tried to ensure that he and others felt proud to wear their skins. When he later mentions “I could be like a 40-year-old man and still introduce myself as the headboy, ” it clicks as the reflections of someone who really put their all in.
This leadership streak continued at Washington State University—despite navigating an entirely new country and culture. From 2023 to 2025, he was the University’s Black Student Athlete Association President. He’d later lead them to a National Award for Black Student Athlete Organisations, among other accolades in academics. Dealing with students on a larger scale and with constraints such as budget limitations meant he had to dig deeper and innovate novel solutions as required. He was able to achieve this for the most part, drawing on the philosophy of knowing the person behind the helmet and the numbers. A memorable highlight of the Association was organising a free screening of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Asked whether he aligns with Namor or Shuri from the film, he responds, “ I can see what Namor was doing [but] I’m Team Shuri because I like a true superhero.”
As a student athlete, Jami participated in eight major meets. He medalled five times and made the All-America Second Team twice: for the Decathlon at the 2024 National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Outdoors Championships and for the Heptathlon at the 2025 NCAA Indoor Championships. His favorite event across both is the hurdles, although he also likes the shot put. Both have proven to be high scorers at track meets.
Most recently, at his February 2025 Nigerian national heptathlon record-breaking showing, he set a personal best of 7.97 in the 60m hurdles. He also reached new highs in the long jump and 1000m events. “The hurdles is something I’ve done from when I started track when I was 10 years old, and I keep coming back to it, no matter if the hurdles sometimes clip me,” he adds convincingly, just before talking about his schedule on meet days: a gallon of water with good hydration two days out, porridge with three scoops of Nutella, blueberries, and some protein powder. It used to be ensuring a particular pair of socks was available but that has since changed with experience.
When the conversation heads towards his journey to representing Nigeria, he adopts a more contemplative tone. His journey through the ranks as an international athlete and eventual decision to go professional included speaking to other Nigerian athletes to understand what was required. In the foreground, his mom and the rest of his family were pivotal. “They [family] opened my eyes to the fact that I actually do have a choice and it’s not just about my location.” He eventually contacted the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), thanks to information from Nigerian hurdler Prosper Ekporere, who represents Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, in the NCAA ranks. On 13th November, 2025, he became eligible to represent Nigeria. He and his mom are currently processing their National Identification Numbers (NIN) and other relevant documents.
There are specific goals for the rest of the athletics year and beyond, but he declines to share. Not even about whether he looks forward to breaking Algerian Larbi Bourrada’s 8521 points and 5911 decathlon and heptathlon African records, respectively. He was close to the heptathlon record at the US Championships in February, needing to score a 2.37 1km race to tally 5912 points, but it just wasn’t to be for the starlet.
Still, he’s focused on the long-term targets. He currently works full-time as a Business Development and Project Management consultant with i3 Strategy Partners, a role he combines with athletics. He had just returned from a three-hour training session before the call. Balancing both comes in the form of weekend walks, museum visits, and trips to the bakery for pastries. And also from being inspired by his Mount Rushmore of his Coach, Chris Huffins, the 2000 Sydney Olympics Men’s Decathlon bronze medallist, British four-time world record holder and serial Olympian, Daley Thompson, and former world record holder and in his opinion, “The GOAT”, Ashton Eaten. Interestingly, Thompson, who bears ‘Ayodele’, also has Nigerian roots—his dad is British Nigerian.
Schlueter is optimistic about the growth of combined events in Nigeria in the foreseeable future. “So far, what I’ve seen is that Nigeria is good at creating space for new and incoming athletes, people who developed through the ranks or people who are coming to represent like I am,” he shares. He agrees that this won’t function without concrete plans. “If Federations and Governments are willing to keep creating space for opportunities, I feel we’re going to be in the right space in the future. We don’t have to go and suddenly put out a million dollars, but by making small marginal gains.” Watching the 2026 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) with friends and other Nigerians at Dallas pubs, he observed the power of sports as a national unifier. And he believes in a similar future for the combined events.
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