DESPITE winning silver and bronze medal, a step better than the country’s last Olympic Games outing, Olympians have described Team Nigeria’s outing at the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Games a disaster and the worst the country have ever attended.
Ese Brume and Blessing Oborududu won the country a bronze and silver medal respectively in the women’s long jump event and wrestling 68kg.
Prior to their feat, the likes of Blessing Okagbare, Enoch Adegoke, Grace Nwkocha, Tobi Amusan, Odunayo Adekuoroye, Divine Oduduru all missed out on the chance to win a medal for various inexplicable reasons.
While Nigeria have surpassed her outing at the Rio Olympics, where the country could only managed to win a bronze medal in the men’s football, some Olympians believed Tokyo 2020 remains the country’s worst outing.
Former Nigerian 100m record holder and two-time African champion, Seun Ogunkoya, also added that Team Nigeria was a failure at the Olympics.
Fastest African of all time Olusoji Fasuba describes the country’s outing as a disaster.
He said, “I will say it is a disaster because of the embarrassing moments we had over there. We did not prepare very well even though it’s been five years instead of four which made me believe it is cause for concern. I hope we prepare very for the next one but for me I will say this outing is a disaster for Nigeria.
“Having 10 athletes not competing, the Samsung phone saga, not enough kits and so many other embarrassing moments really got me worried.”
Ogunkoya who had predicted that Team Nigeria had a chance to win four medals at the games said, “Our performance was a disaster. Its only sports that unite the world and indeed Nigeria had some of the best athletes to win medals if they were well trained before the Olympics.
“The problem Nigeria has is that the administrators mix sports and politics together which has taken the country nowhere. The problem started in Nigeria before they departed.
“You cannot give what you don’t have in athletics. Athletics is measurable if your foundation is not strong, you will falter. The fundamental problem in athletics is the sports ministry and the crisis rocking the AFN.
“The Olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world and you have to prepare well for it but our athletes did not. Our biggest medal hopeful
“If you don’t prepare well for it, miracle won’t happen.”
Atlanta gold medallists Abiodun Obafemi and Dosu Joseph, also gave their thoughts on the team’s poor performance in Tokyo.
“Saying disaster is an understatement and if there is any other word to describe the outing I will say pathetic. Pathetic is another word that really befits the situation we found ourselves as the best sporting country in the world without any doubt,” Obafemi said.
“It is just unfortunate because it is becoming a current decimal, it keeps happening and we just fail to learn. Look at the Chinese they made their number count and look at the number of medals that they’ve won. These are countries where things work the way they should be, the talents are there but we fail to nurture these talents. I just hope we get it right very soon because with proper planning we could have won more medals and it is frustrating for someone like me who knows how God mad us.”
Former goalkeeper, Dosu added, “The big question is the athletes that went to represent us, are they enough compared to countries coming with over 200 athletes. Going with few athletes really knocked us out winning a lot of medals but I want to commend the athletes for trying to win two medals for the country.
“But it is unfortunate that we will keep on complaining of athletes not been paid or sent out for proper training on time and we keep coming back to the drawing board. We should try and put an end to this. The athletes tried but in terms of preparation I will say it is zero from the NOC, organisers Team Nigeria before the athletes travelled.”
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