Olympics
What are Nigeria’s expectations at Paris 2024?
Exactly one week ago this Friday, it was 72 years since Nigeria debuted at the Olympic Games in Helsinki. Since that July 19 date in 1952, Nigeria has featured in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games except that of Montreal in 1976 which the country boycotted along with some African and Asian countries.
Paris 2024 is therefore Nigeria’s 18th outing. What are the expectations of Nigeria? The desire to compete; the skills to excel, the courage to overcome and the strength to believe are the qualities of true sportsmen and great Olympians.
These are what Sports Village Square expects from Team Nigeria as Paris 2024 officially opens this Friday.
Sadly, the qualities articulated above are not well reflected in Nigeria’s participation in the Olympic Games, where the country appears just to make up the numbers.
No conscious effort to surpass previous marks. Hence, the country cannot look back to many memorable achievements in what is universally acknowledged as the greatest show on earth.
Nigeria obviously does not rank among the super powers in the Olympics and also not among the best ranked African countries at the Games.
These are the pictures Team Nigeria must strive to wipe off at the Paris 2024.
Somehow, Nigeria’s performances since Helsinki Games in 1952 have not reflected the spirit of the Olympic Games’ Motto: Citius – Altius – Fortius (Swifter – Higher -Stronger).
Sports Village Square’s study of Nigeria’s participation at the Olympics shows that a poor one often follows a fair outing.
Perhaps, few examples are necessary. The bronze medal that Nojeem Maiyegun won at the 1964 Tokyo Games was followed by a fruitless outing at the 1968 Games in Mexico.
After another bronze medal by Isaac Ikhouria at the Munich 1972 Games, Nigeria had a scandalous and barren-medal outing at the next appearance – the Moscow 1980 Games.
No medal was won at the 1988 Games after the lone silver and bronze medals at the Los Angeles 1984. The trend only changed when in Atlanta ’96, with two gold a silver and three bronze medals, proved a better outing than the preceding Barcelona ’92.
Yet the feat at Atlanta could not be matched at the Sydney 2000. Athens 2004 proved a return to the sad old cycle as Nigeria won just two bronze medals.
After the Barcelona ’92 Olympics, the nation went into jubilation over the four medal count achieved. A good result it was when compared with past achievements since the Helsinki 1952 debut.
The four-medal count comprising a bronze and three silver medals brought Nigeria’s count in 11 editions to eight medals. With medals of 1964, 1972, 1984, 1992 and 2004 added up, they are a mere fraction of what Kenya won at the Seoul 1988 Olympics alone.
The East Africans who have a fair control of the endurance races had a haul of five gold, two silver and two bronze medals at the Seoul 1988 Games.
Since 2000 Games, Nigeria has not won an Olympic gold medal. The three silver and two bronze medals achievement at Beijing 2008, which were an improvement on the two bronze medals at Athens 2004 was immediately followed by a barren outing at London 2012.
At Rio 2016, Nigeria returned with just a bronze medal. That single bronze medal completes Nigeria’s cycle of fluctuating fortunes. It is time to put an end to this.
One step towards achieving this is to glean intelligent reports that could aid better performances for Team Nigeria at the Olympics.
Allen Dulles, the CIA Director during the celebrated Bay of Pigs episode in the near war between US and Cuba in the early 1960s, remarked that “intelligence is probably the least understood and most misrepresented of the diplomatic profession.”
In short, he meant to say that all nations spy. One can add that sports teams also spy at potential and actual opponents.
Even though espionage is often linked with sinister activities, to those in international relations, this is a misconception. A bit of spying is necessary to adjust to the right situations if one is to achieve the best possible goal.
This is in sports as it is in relations among nations. Intelligent reports are gleaned on other contestants and opponents – both actual and potential.
This is what Team Nigeria appears yet to employ in place of shooting-in-dark approach in preparation for multi-discipline games. We should ask ourselves the salient question: what do others do that make them table-toppers always.
To achieve the status of an Olympic contender requires long and dedicated training. The burning desire to excel over others creates a champion.
Countries that have succeeded at the Olympics put up serious long and short-term planning. Nigeria’s preparation for most Games is often towards the commencement of the sporting fiestas. Olympic champions are not made that way.
One recalls the Barcelona ’92 Olympics, the very first that this reporter attended.
US at the games, topped the medals’ chart and in spite of the country’s upswing and a total medal count of 108 – the third highest in the games’ history at the time, – the Americans were worried that the figures could be misleading.
They were conscious that over half of their medals came from athletics and swimming out of the 22 sports entered for. They began a review of strategies to be employed at future games. They planned to upgrade other sports federations.
Still making Barcelona ‘92 a focal point, one recalls the situation regarding Spain, a nation not rated among the super athletics performers.
At Barcelona ’92 Games, their 22-medal count was a result of a four-year programme in which $120 million was spent on competitors and coaches.
The programme was aimed at changing Spain’s poor sports image. At the preceding Seoul ’88 Games, Spain won pitiable four medals. They went to the drawing board. “We wanted to give the world an image of Spain’s dynamic and modern trend, not only for folklore”, said the then sports minister, Hanvier Navarro, at a press conference at the close of Barcelona ’82.
For Spain, more than a dozen of coaches were imported from Cuba and the western bloc. They came as teachers in boxing, volleyball, archery, cycling etc.
They coached over 800 athletes who got subsidy of $80,000 a year for four years. In addition, a one million dollar pension scheme from a Spanish bank was planned for each gold medallist when he clocked 50. The money reportedly came from an insurance policy with an American firm which was to pay for each medal.
Such direct aid to sports is what Nigerian sports deserve to make great impact and produce great Olympians.
It is pertinent to find out how Australia managed to improve on their medals count over many Olympic Games. At Seoul ’88 for instance, Australia had 14 medals which progressively improved to 27 at Barcelona ’92, 41 at Atlanta ’96 and 58 at Sydney 2000.
At Athens 2004, their medal count was 49, though a drop from the previous 58, the Australians up till Tokyo 2020 have managed to be in the top 10 bracket of the final medals tables.
Australia is taken as a case study since using US, Russia and China may be going to the extreme owing to their overwhelming control of the Olympic Games final medals tables.
A study of organisation and funding of sports in Australia showed that the Australian Sports Institute awarded 600 scholarships a year and funded full-time coaches.
The Australian Institute of Sport is a high performance sports training institution. Since being established in 1981, it has seen the country shooting up in the Olympics medals tables.
If we may ask: what has become of Nigeria’s National Institute of Sports established about the same time as that of Australia?
Nigeria’s low performance at the Olympics may have also stemmed from the fact that the country is not taking advantage of its natural endowments.
One wonders why Nigeria has not considered investing in swimmers and aquatic-based athletes from the Niger Delta Region where water is their natural habitat.
The region should be producing not just gold medal winners in Africa, but also contenders at the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
The multinational oil firms that impaired on the people’s natural economic activities and also made swimming impossible in the region can contribute in raising athletes and funding the maintenance of pools.
The control of the overall medals tables at African Games and the Olympics is mainly from the water-based sports. This will help to revive the latent talents in swimming which always account for the bulk of medals in most Games.
We have a choice to make whether to win few medals in the popular sports, or go for the lesser-known ones which fetch more medals and impart more on the overall tables.
Canoeing, may be a way of life in the river-side areas of Nigeria, but as a sport, it is insignificant. But the relatively unknown Nigerians won four gold medals for the country in this unrated sports discipline in the country at the Rabat 2019 African Games.
Imagine the return on investment on the two athletes, Ayomide Bello and Goodness Foloki that won the four medals.
This brings to the fore, the application of the principle of comparative advantage in sports. As in international trade, Nigeria should look into those sports, even if not popular, that are indigenous to its citizens to make marks in multi-discipline games.
We have seen our strength in wrestling and weightlifting. These are not popular sports by Nigerians’ reckoning, but they brought glory.
The US, China and Russia that always top medals tables at the Olympics don’t rely on football or any other team event that only contribute to shooting up contingents’ sizes and expenditure without having corresponding impact on overall medal achievements.
Archery, canoeing, rowing, diving and equestrian sports among others are indigenous to some parts of Nigeria and the indigenes are naturally endowed.
Canoeing for instance, is part of normal life in the riverside areas. We saw what we did in that sport at Rabat 2019 where Nigeria won four gold medals to be second to South Africa that had eight.
Investing in that sport may breed future Olympic champions. Archery and horsemanship are indigenous to the North.
If the Tony Ikazoboh’s proposal of decentralising sports federations instead of their clustering in the federal capital is accepted; an association for archery and equestrian sports should be located in the North where talents abound. While swimming federation should be located in the South South.
Walking has become a way of life in Nigeria. With proper teaching of the rules, talents for the Olympic Games will not be in short supply in Lagos area and other urban centres where chaotic transport system has created the enabling environment for prospective Olympic medallists in walking.
In summary, Nigeria should make concrete efforts at identifying the reasons why other countries perform well at the Olympics and how the country too can excel.
Olympics
Paris 2024 Games break record ticket sales
Paris 2024 sold a record 12 million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics, beating the Games record previously set by London 2012, organisers said on Sunday.
Some 9.5 million tickets were sold for the Olympics and 2.5 million for the Paralympics, which end on Sunday.
In 2012, London organisers set the record for the Paralympics with 2.7 million tickets sold but only 8.2 million were sold for the Olympics.
-Reuters
Olympics
Paris to name sports venue after dead Ugandan Olympian Cheptegei
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
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
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