Olympics No-show a Wake-up Call for Sports Federations

  With Ese Brume claiming the bronze medal in the women's long jump and Blessing Oborodudu fighting her way to the silver medal in th...

 

With Ese Brume claiming the bronze medal in the women's long jump and Blessing Oborodudu fighting her way to the silver medal in the women's wrestling event, Nigeria will not be leaving the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games empty-handed after all.

Prior to Brume and Oborodudu's medal-winning feats, Team Nigeria has endured a nightmarish time in Tokyo.

Virtually everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong.

Our competitors fell like a pack of cards in their respective events and then there was the big bombshell that hit our athletics continent. 10 of our athletes had been banned from participating at the Games after failing to take mandatory no-notice drugs tests.

It must be said that the doping suspension was no fault of the athletes, but rather, of the administrators who were negligent in their duties.

As if that was not bad enough, news soon broke of Blessing Okagbare's failed drugs test. Okagbare, one of the team's brightest medal hopefuls, was getting ready for the women's 100m semi-finals when she was removed from the competition having tested positive for the banned substance, Human Growth Hormone (HGH).

Okagbare was one of those athletes that we felt could emerge from the rubble and sneak a medal for Team Nigeria, with a few punters putting money on her on Nigerian betting sites!

She didn't even emerge for her semi-final, let alone win a medal!

For those that managed to get on the track, they were hit with one misfortune or the other. Divine Oduduru was disqualified for a questionable false start ruling in the men's 100m, while Enoch Adegoke, who ran the race of his life to get into the final, did not finish the final after pulling his hamstring just after the gun.

Our basketball teams went to Tokyo with so much promise but ended up with nothing. The men's and women's teams combined for a shambolic 0-6 record in the round-robin phase of the event.

Our table tennis players weren't any better, neither were those in badminton.

It has generally been an Olympic Games to forget for Team Nigeria.

Luckily, the reason behind our non-performance in Tokyo is there for all to see. We have once again failed to prepare adequately for a major global event, relying instead on prayers and miracles to attain success at the tournament.

Both the Athletics and Basketball federations have spent the better part of the last five years squabbling over leadership roles instead of focusing on the people that really matter- the athletes.

The unfortunate thing is that we never seem to learn from our failures in this country.

As Tokyo 2020 nears its end, another Olympic cycle begins in earnest. Serious-minded nations have already started drawing up plans that will hopefully lead to medals in Paris in 2024.

Nigeria, however, will probably spend the next few months and years playing the blame game and fighting over who should head the federations.

The sports ministry has also got to take responsibility in all of these.

There is far too much focus on football that many other sports with potentials for medals are ignored during the Olympic cycle.

It is very possible that three years from now Paris, we will be singing the same old song of lack of preparations.

Hopefully, someday, we will get it right.

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