Olympics
Nigeria’s Opeyori out to end Africa’s Olympic badminton jinx
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BY ISAIAH AKINREMI, BBC SPORT AFRICA
As African badminton champion Anuoluwapo Juwon Opeyori prepares to make Olympic history for the continent in Paris, the Nigerian can take heart from knowing that he has regularly defied the odds.
For despite being born in an informal settlement in Nigeria’s biggest city Lagos, the 27-year-old has risen up to win four continental singles titles, more than any African man before.
What makes the feat all the more impressive is that he lives in a country without one badminton-designated facility, but nonetheless he is now hoping to become the first African to progress in the Olympic men’s singles competition.
“My target is to get to the quarter-final because once I’m able to win one game, I believe that will be a big upset for everyone and I should be able to achieve more than that,” Opeyori told BBC Sport Africa.
Not once since badminton became an Olympic sport in 1992 has an African man ever reached the next round, even if South Africa’s Jacob Maliekal did manage to win a game in the group stages of the 2016 Games when he beat a Ukrainian opponent only to fail to make the next phase.
Meanwhile, the continent’s record is marginally better in the women’s game where Hadia Hosny of Egupt knocked out a Mexican opponent in 2008 to actually reach the second round – the one and only time an African has achieved this in Olympic badminton singles history.
Despite the weight of history, Opeyori – who has won Africa’s last three singles titles as well as the African Games title earlier this year – is approaching the 2024 Games in confident mood.
“Technically-speaking, I’m not under pressure because I’ll be facing people that are very good. So they should be the ones under pressure because I’m coming for them. So it is a battle that I am taking to them.”
‘Breaking African jinx’
Opeyori’s journey to the top of African badminton started in unexpected fashion – since he was actually playing Nigeria’s favourite sport at the time.
Anuoluwapo Opeyori (left) alongside Godwin Olofua played in the men’s doubles of the 2020 Tokyo games
“I was playing football with my friends when the coach saw us,” he explained as he walked around the Rowe Park sport complex, where his journey began, in Lagos.
“I think he had very good insight because we were just normal kids playing football. But he introduced the game to us and immediately that he gave me the racket, I bonded with it.”
Despite having neither a racket nor shoes, with Opeyori borrowing both, a love had been born yet any hopes of rapid progress were further stymied by the limited badminton facilities in Africa’s most populous nation.
“It will amaze you to know that in Nigeria, we don’t have a single badminton facility – not one,” Francis Orbih, the president of the Badminton Federation of Nigeria, told BBC Sport Africa.
“In most public places, what you have is a multi-purpose hall – so that’s table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, boxing, basketball, handball etc. in just one hall. So when basketball has a two-week programme, badminton can’t train and that is a huge drawback.”
It was a trip to Asia in 2018 that changed Opeyori’s career, says Orbih.
For the year after attending a two-month training camp in Indonesia, a country that boasts eight Olympic badminton golds (and 21 overall), Opeyori won the first of his record four African men’s singles titles.
Having won the last three on offer, the African champion is now tipped to make his continent proud at the Olympics.
“If anyone is going to be able to break the jinx, it’s him – he has the capacity to do it,” says Orbih.
“He is disciplined, hardworking and passionate about the game, and that is what has brought him to where he is and kept him there.”
Before he stepped onto the badminton court in a moment that changed his life, Opeyori had been conducting menial jobs near his Lagos home, such as bricklaying, just to get by.
He was also supported by the money raised from selling provisions by his mother Funke, who was delighted by his proposed career change.
“When he told me he wanted to play badminton, he was not aware that I used to play the sport,” Funke, a former amateur player, told BBC Sport Africa.
“Anytime he travels for competition, I am always happy and support him by fasting and praying because I am excited my son is so fortunate.”
“It means badminton run in the blood,” said Opeyori.
In fact, his career has become a family affair after his elder brother Funsho set aside his own badminton abilities nearly a decade ago to both train and fund his sibling.
“I gave up my dream because I saw good potential in him,” said Funsho.
“I’m excited because he is African number one and I’m very confident that he is going to break the jinx at the Olympics.”
Opeyori played at the last Olympics in the doubles, suffering a first-round exit, and will be one of just two African men in the badminton singles, along with Georges Julien Paul of Mauritius.
Meanwhile, fellow Mauritian Kate Foo Kune, who has also previously won a round-robin game at the Olympics but no more, will contest the women’s singles as will South Africa’s Johanita Scholtz.
Nonetheless, the traditional Asian dominance of the sport – combined with the challenges faced by Africa’s best players – means that achieving net gains in Paris is going to be an uphill task, one which Opeyori is relishing.
“I’m coming with good confidence and making the nation proud is my aspiration – and the whole of Africa also.”
Anuoluwapo Juwon Opeyori will begin his quest to make history at the Paris 2024 Olympics in Group N against Li Shi Feng (China) and Tobias Kunezi (Switzerland) in the group stage.
-BBC
Olympics
Paris to name sports venue after dead Ugandan Olympian Cheptegei
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The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.
The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.
The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.
“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.
“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.
-Reuters
Olympics
Row over plan to keep Olympic rings on Eiffel Tower
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Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.
But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.
She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.
The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.
Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.
“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.
But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.
“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.
Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.
In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.
The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.
Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.
Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.
Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.
But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.
France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.
And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.
-BBC
Olympics
AIU files appeal with CAS against America’s Olympic sprinter, Knighton
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The Athletics Integrity Unit said on Wednesday it has filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the case that cleared American sprinter Erriyon Knighton of a doping offence, thus allowing him to compete at the Paris Olympics.
Knighton, 20, tested positive for a banned substance in March but avoided a ban as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said an independent arbitrator ruled it was likely caused by contaminated meat and that he was not at fault and had not acted with negligence.
The finding cleared the 200 metres world silver medallist to run at the U.S. Olympic trials in June and he went on to compete in Paris where he finished fourth in the men’s 200m final.
The AIU, an independent body created in 2017 by World Athletics to manage integrity issues for the sport of athletics, said it has challenged the first instance decision that Knighton had established no fault or negligence.
“This appeal is against the decision of an arbitration tribunal in the United States that the athlete established no fault or negligence after USADA brought charges against the athlete for the presence of epitrenbolone and use of trenbolone,” the AIU said on X.
USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart said in a statement on Wednesday he understood the AIU’s reasons for appealing the case, which he called an example of the system at work, before pointing a finger at the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The real issue in this case is WADA’s bad rule. Trenbolone, the substance in Knighton’s case, is a known livestock enhancer and known to be found in the meat supply,” Tygart said.
“We have advocated for the rules around contamination to formally change for years, and WADA has refused to act swiftly.”
U.S. and global anti-doping authorities have been at loggerheads since the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but were allowed to compete.
-Reuters
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