Olympics
Nigeria’s catastrophic results at the Olympics make headline in Europe
Not only Nigerians back home are disappointed about the results obtained by Team Nigeria at the Paris 2024 Olympics, it was also shocking to foreign observers.
One of such is reflected in a report carried by Inside The Games, an Olympic news website being run by Vox Europe Investment Holding Ltd. The story written by Claudia Saez, it runs thus:
“With no medal haul for the first time since 2012, the faltering performances of Nigeria’s contingent in Paris failed to live up to pre-Games expectations.
As in previous Olympics, it seems like an indictment of the country’s consistently inept sports administration.
With the exception of the women basketball team, D’Tigress, who qualified for their first-ever quarterfinal at the Olympic Games after a thrilling 79-70 win over Canada in their final group B match on Sunday, Team Nigeria’s wobbly performances at the ongoing Paris Games persists with the country’s athletes crashing out of 10 events they entered for.
The fact that the country did not win a single medal for the first time since London 2012 seems like evidence in the reckless exclusion of the nation’s national champion and only medal hopeful, Favour Ofili, from the women’s 100m race.
While smaller nations on the continent came home with multiple medals, the Giant of Africa left empty-handed for the first time since the 2012 London Olympics. Despite fielding continental champions like 100m hurdles record holder Tobi Amusan, Africa’s most populous nation did not live up to Olympic expectations.
A day after the Olympics closed, former and current Olympians lashed out at the country’s sporting federations calling for a shakeup in organisations they say failed their athletes. “I must apologise to our compatriots and reflect on what went wrong,” Sports Minister John Owan Enoh said on social media after Paris.
He said when he assumed the ministry less than a year before the Games, he learned that Nigeria’s Olympics preparations had not even started. “As a country, we deserve more,” he said. “Let’s turn the disastrous outcome of the 2024 Olympics to a huge positive for Nigerian sports.”
Nigeria’s best haul in the Olympics was in Atlanta in 1996 when the team won two golds, one silver and three bronzes. Beijing brought five medals in 2008, but there were zero in London four years later.
Atlanta Olympics gold medal winner in the long jump, Chioma Ajunwa, said Nigeria’s sporting federations needed a shakeup to bring in sports people who knew what they were doing. “They should stop recycling the old administrative officers that never know what they are doing,” she told Arise News channel. “It is quite disheartening that every year, Nigeria will be telling this kind of story.”
Accusations from the athletes
Olympic sprinter Favour Ofili accused officials at the Athletics Federation of Nigeria of leaving her out of the Paris 100 metres race due to administrative failures even after she qualified.
Similar accusations dogged Nigeria during the Tokyo Olympics when a group of Nigerian athletes were unable to compete because they said sporting federations did not release funds to carry out the right pre-Games tests. “I have worked for four years to earn this opportunity. For what?” Ofili wrote on X. “This is not the first time you guys are doing this so don’t think this is over because it’s not.”
Officials from the athletics federation did not respond to calls. But a senior source from Nigeria’s sporting administration told AFP officials withdrew Ofili to let her focus on the 200 metre race. “The decision to withdraw her from 100m was by AFN, but apparently this was not communicated to the athlete,” the source said.
Sports Minister Enoh said he was questioning officials about why Ofili was left out of the 100 metres race. Ofili came sixth in the 200 metres final in her Olympic debut in Paris. Hurdler Tobi Amusan came third in her heat and did not qualify for the final.
Hameed Adio, former 100 metres sprinter and Olympic team captain, said the country needed more preparation and better organisation.
“Until we consider sports as big business and treat it as such and not just a pastime and also see that those running our sports are technically sound, experienced and patriotic, the results will remain as we had at Paris 2024,” he said.
“We have to do away with the ‘fire brigade’ approach to our preparations to the Olympics.”
One bright spot for Nigeria was women’s basketball under the guidance of Rena Wakama who was recognised as Best Female Basketball Coach at the Games for the team’s “incredible run”, according to the International Basketball Federation.
They beat Canada to become the first African team to reach the quarter-finals where they lost to eventual gold medalists USA.
Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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Ukraine’s skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Games on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, the International Olympic Committee said.
He was informed of his disqualification after a meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry early in the morning at the sliding venue.
His team said they would appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Coventry told reporters she had wanted to meet the athlete face to face in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.
“I was not meant to be here but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face,” Coventry told reporters.
“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly we’ve not been able to find that solution” she added, choking up.
“I really wanted to see him race, It’s been an emotional morning.”
The IOC offered him the opportunity to display his “helmet of remembrance” depicting 24 images of dead compatriots before the start and after the end of Thursday’s race at the Games, while also allowing him to wear a black armband while competing.
“I am disqualified from the race. I will not get my Olympic moment,” said Heraskevych.
The skeleton competition starts later on Thursday.
-Reuters
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