Rio 2016 Olympics: How prepared are Nigerian athletes?

When the country’s contingent to London 2012 Olympics came back to the country without a single medal to show for their effort, many Nigerians believed that the country’s worst outing at the biggest sporting event in the World will serve as a lesson to sports administrators in the country. The London 2012 Olympic Games was the first competition since the 1988 Seoul Olympics that Nigeria would participate in the event without winning a single medal.
As is the practice over the years, the government then under President Goodluck Jonathan immediately after the “show of shame” in London, inaugurated a sports summit to look into the immediate and remote causes of the country’s athletes poor showing in London; proffer solutions on how to avoid a repeat occurrence as well advise government on how to reposition the country’s sports to put it at par with that of other countries of the World. Although the summit identified poor funding, inadequate preparations, low morale and lack of adequate exposure of athletes as part of the problem confronting Nigerian sports but little was done to remedy the situation before the former President was voted out of office.
While millions of Nigerians had expected those at the helms of the country’s sport to correct the lapses discovered in the last Olympics to enable the country put up a better performance at the 2016 Rio Games, nothing concrete was done to remedy the situation. This situation has made many people believe that Nigeria will be going to another jamboree in Brazil because there is nothing on ground to indicate that we have learnt our lesions from the London 2012 miserable outing.
However, while many has blamed inconsistent sports policy as the bane of the country’s sports development, others felt that the frequent changing of Sports Ministers coupled with the appointment of those with little or no sports background contributed immensely to the poor. results posted by Nigeria at international competitions. A good example was when shortly after the Sports summit, the then Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi, was replaced with Tamuno Danagogo, who rather than building on the programmes of his predecessor, discarded advice of experts at the summit.
It was in this precarious situation that the country found itself when various Olympic trials began with the country’s athletes finding it difficult to pick qualification for the Games even in sports where we had comparative advantage because of inadequate preparation. Taking a proper look at the qualifiers, one will be surprised to discover that in boxing, out of a total of ten pugilists made up of seven men and three women that represented the country in the Olympic qualifiers in Cameroon only two boxer; Efe Ajagba and Caroline Linus were able to pick ticket for Rio Olympics while none of our athletes made it in the taekwondo qualifiers which gave the country bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The story is not different in the track and field events where the country’s only medal hopeful, Blessing Okagbare could not be said to be in top form ahead of the Games. Blessing Okagbare, who is an Olympic and World Championships medalist in the long jump and a world medalist in the 200 meters as well as holds the Women’s 100 meters Commonwealth Games record for the fastest time at 10.85 seconds and African record holder in the event at 10.79 seconds could not be said to be in superlative form considering her performances in the various invitational tournaments she had participated in lately.
It is true that the country’s basketball male team will return to the Olympics after making its debut at the London Games, but it is yet to be seen how far the team will go in the Games considering the pedigree of other countries in the slam and dunk game. As the countdown to the Olympics begins, it seems the country is paying more attention to football; a team event which accounts for only one gold medal at the detriment of other sports like Rowing and Yachting, weightlifting, boxing, wrestling and athletics which is capable of giving Nigeria many medals.
There is no denying the fact that for the country to reclaim its leadership position in sports in the continent; this ugly scenario that made Government spend so much on football at the detriment of other sports must be stopped as that is the only way Sporting Federations can get adequate funding. Although there is no denying the fact that football is regarded as the number one sport all over the World, but we must start now to adequately fund other sports, so as to be in position to go for medal haul at 2020 Olympics.
Taking a critical look at our preparation for the forthcoming Olympics, one will not be mistaken to conclude that Nigeria might be going for another jamboree in Brazil or that Nigeria winning a medal will be a miracle because of inadequate preparation, poor funding and fire brigade approach that has characterized preparation for Rio 2016 Olympics.