Nigerian Olympians' Flaws Exposed in London

Pius Ayinor writes on the failure of Nigeria at the 2012 London Olympics and poor preparation of the athletes

 

 Nothing seemed to be wrong with any Nigerian team to the London Olympics as the coaches and officials assured everyone of their readiness until Nigerian athletes began to drop out of the Games within five minutes of participation.

 

At that point it became obvious that Nigeria had adopted wrong method to prepare the athletes.

 

After Nigeria returned from Seoul Olympics with no medal in 1988, questions were asked about how the nation prepared the athletes while other nations celebrated successful outings. Falling back to the same level 24 years after has left more questions than answers.

 

Sporting events used to be a source of relief to average Nigerians under the harsh economic and political terrain but it appears that the London Olympics has simply added up to the lists of events Nigerians want to quickly forget.

 

Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi, while admitting the country’s failure in London, said the overall result of Team Nigeria was a clear testimony of the decline in Nigerian sports. His speech summarised the country’s attempt in London.

 

Abdullahi said, “About two weeks ago, we arrived in London for the 2012 Olympics with a contingent of 51 sportsmen and women competing in eight sports namely, athletics, weightlifting, taekwondo, boxing, wrestling, table tennis, canoeing and basketball. We were competing in the last two for the first time ever.

 

“Even though we did not expect to win the competition, we had arrived hoping to make a decent showing. We even had reasons to believe we could surpass some of our recent achievements at this level of competing. Why not?

 

“We shall, therefore, not attempt any excuses or indulge in any unproductive blame game. We must not see this as a failure; we must see it as an opportunity to rebuild.”

 

Nobody expected Nigeria to perform like the US or China but the entire pattern of doing things the way they were done in the ‘70s has produced more anger than sympathy. The country is clearly in dire need of foreign expertise in many fields. Coaching has gone scientific and that was obvious in London and the country just has to move with the world. The usual late release of funds in Olympic year also took its toll this time.

 

Athletics

 

Athletics is an area that Nigeria had always done well in global meets. From the sprints to quarter-mile, there were always available talents. Facts on ground in the last few years had suggested that the country was not going to do very well but hardly anybody imagined it would turn out as bad as we have it now.

 

Blessing Okagbare was the best Nigerian athlete in 100m and long jump in the last two years and the entire athletics challenge was built around her. She was even branded the face of the Nigerian Olympics outing. It’s difficult to measure if the hype built around her helped the country or even caused more damage to the team. Eventually, she failed to lift the nation’s hope for a medal.

 

More needs to be done in the athletics department if Nigeria hopes to turn failure to success in the 2016 Games. Talents must be discovered and nurtured before the likes of Okagbare fade away. The other athletes have to be encouraged too and make them have some sense of belonging as a team rather than making up the numbers.

 

Table tennis

 

Table tennis has never given the country an Olympics medal but their performance in London was just too low. The signs of failure in London were obvious after their unsuccessful appearance at the last Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. This is the most lacking of all the events the country entered into. Only much younger Quadri Aruna looked like he could make any meaningful impact and he was indeed the most successful of the four players presented.

 

The system has broken down such that the players have dwindled in number. Funke Oshonaike and Segun Toriola were representing the country in their fifth and sixth Olympics respectively. If they are still the best in their categories, it means there are no developmental plans in place to replace the ageing stars. “We used to play a lot of competitions with many sponsors and that kept us in shape all the time. But these days you can count them. When we were much younger you may not be able to play all the competitions because they were so many but now the players just train without taking part in many competitions to test their skills,” Oshonaike said of tennis.

 

This game requires Nigeria to seek support from a country like China. All the top countries in London were either represented by nationalised Chinese or coached by the Chinese.

 

Basketball

 

D’Tigers got to the Olympics by surprise. They were not expected to win any medal in London and they could not go near any but they were the rallying point for Nigerians at the Games. The match against the USA came off with embarrassing result but still the basketball team was one group Nigerians proudly associated with despite not qualifying for the quarter-final.

 

“One of the gains of London 2012 is that basketball featured,” the minister said in his assessment.

 

What the managers of the national side needs to do is to build upon the solid foundation London 2012 has provided.

 

Taekwondo

 

The question to ask here is what happens if Chika Chukwumerije quits the scene today? The federation needs to work hard to build up other quality fighters of international standard. Only Chukwumerije and Isah Muhammad cannot continue to carry the national banner; they need more people around them. In London, Nigeria depended on Chukwumerije but pressure on him would have eased if the burden is shared with other capable fighters.

 

Boxing

 

It is still difficult to explain what has come over boxing in Nigeria but the clear sign over there is political fights and favouritism which have combined to reduce the country’s chances.

 

All attempts to revive the sport in the last decade have been thwarted by controversies. In London, the boxers only reflected the problem that has over burdened them from home.

 

Female boxer Edith Ogoke is a promising fighter who was only unfortunate to have fought only the very best fighter in the world in her first major outing. She needs to be encouraged. But the entire system needs cleaning. The bickering over coaching in Nigerian boxing has killed the country’s major source of medal.

 

Weightlifting and wrestling

 

When the Bulgarians were in the country these were two fields that produced a lot of medals for the country. Even when they didn’t win medals one could see clearly that the athletes did perform far above average. In London 2012, coaching was part of the challenge and it is a section that needs foreign technical expertise to assist the local man power and build up the departments again.

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