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Paris 2024: “We must return to the drawing board and reset”, says Hameed Adio, Nigeria’s captain to Moscow ‘80

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Former Nigeria captain to the Olympics, Hameed Adio has lent his voice to the need for action as Nigeria again underperformed at the Olympics.

In his active days, he competed in men’s 100m.

He is a former broadcaster with the Nigeria Television Authority  and served as  the manger sports news. As journalist, he  covered the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France and the 1999 IAAF World Championships in Seville, Spain.

He has also been sports commisioner in Kwara State and thus eminently qualified to do a post-mortem of the Team Nigeria’s  failure at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Hisviews: “ Good morning my dear friend and brother Kunle. Kudos for the wonderful job you are doing at the Paris 2024 Games.

“Your excellent reporting of events at the Games has kept many of us at home abreast of all the happenings at the world’s most prestigious sports fiesta where athletes from different countries strife to push the limit of human potential and rewrite the boundaries of expectations.

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“ Nigeria our dear country given our potential is expected to fall into this category but unfortunately we have found ourselves unable to so do due to some painful but avoidable factors.

“Until we go back to the basics, the grassroots, our schools, the incubators where talents in different sports are discovered,  nurtured and later developed to stardom, failure will be a recurring decimal”

Continuing, Adio remarked: “Until we consider sports as big business and treated as such and  not just as a past time and also see that those running our sports are technically sound, experienced, selfless, committed, and patriotic, the results shall remain as it is at the Paris 2024.”

He further pointed out that round pegs must be fixed into round holes.  “Until we completely do away with our usual culture of  “fire brigade” approach to our preparations for the Olympics, barren outing will be a continuous exercise.”

 Adio pointed out that the country must  realize that Olympics is not a “tea party” but an event which should not be treated with kid gloves. “I am afraid  we will not get the required results which unfortunately smaller countries in size, population and resources are reaping due to their excellent preparations.”

 

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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Olympics

Justice Delayed: Olympic Gold Returned to American Boxer After 36 Years

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Roy Jones Jr v Enzo Maccarinelli cruiserweight fight - VTB Ice Palace, Moscow - 12/12/15 American-Russian Roy Jones Jr during the fight REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/ File Photo

Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.

Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American’s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.

“I had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,” Park said in the video through his son, who translated.

Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: “Wow, that is crazy.”

Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing’s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.

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Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics.

Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.

“In 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,” Jones wrote in his Instagram post.

“By the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.

“I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.”

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-Reuters

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Trump to sign order creating Olympics task force ahead of 2028 games

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Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games logo pictured at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 14, 2024. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo

U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official told Reuters.

The task force, made up of members from Trump’s cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said.

It also will “streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media,” the official said in an email.

The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the World Cup.

“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday.

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Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule . The city had also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.

“The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,” Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.

Reuters

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A love for ice cream took Nigerian swimmer Adaku Nwandu to the Olympics

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Singapore-based Adaku Nwandu represented Nigeria at the Paris 2024 Olympics. PHOTO: ADA.NWANDU/INSTAGRAM

By DAVID LEE

Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.

And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).

In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.

After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.

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Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”

In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.


She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”

By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.

But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.

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Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”

For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.

Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.

Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.

The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.

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“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”

-Strait Times, Singapore

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