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The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, has been adjudged as one of the best in the history of the games. Although the COVID-19 pandemic affected the scheduling of the event, nevertheless, it ended on a colourful note. Over 11,000 athletes from over 200 countries and territories participated in the games. In all, Team Nigeria got only two medals, a silver and a bronze.
The silver medal came from Blessing Oborodudu in Women Wrestling, the second African woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling after Tunisian Marwa Amri. Nigeria’s bronze was won by Ese Brume in Long Jump. Overall, Nigeria came 74th on the medals table. Tokyo 2020 is considered our best outing in 13 years, and better than Nigeria’s outing in Rio 2016 Olympics when Team Nigeria won only a bronze medal. However, considering the country’s population and talents, the Tokyo outing was abysmal and unacceptable. But the performance was not surprising considering our lack of preparation for the games.
Mere participation in the event is no longer enough. Emphasis now is on winning medals. Since the sporting event is held once every four years, it requires that participating nations must invest so much and prepare their athletes very well ahead of the event. Team Nigeria’s abysmal performance in Tokyo represents the growing slide in Nigerian sports. Poor investment in sports, especially in areas that we have comparative advantage, and ad hoc preparations have haunted sports development and performance of our athletes in major sporting competitions. In Nigeria’s 69 years of Olympic participation, the country has won 27 medals; three gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze. Making its debut in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, Nigeria came to the medals table in Tokyo 1964 Olympics with a bronze in Boxing won by Nojeem Mayegun, and another bronze medal in Munich 1972 Olympics, courtesy of Isaac Ikhouria, where Nigeria placed 43 on the overall medals table. It was not until the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, that Nigeria improved on its previous outings with one silver in Boxing by Peter Konyegwachie, and a bronze in Men’s 4 × 400 metres Relay to place 30th on the medals table. Nigeria’s golden moment and unarguably the best outing so far in the Olympics was at the Atlanta1996, where the country won one gold in football, one silver, and three bronze medals to place 38th position on the overall medals table. Apart from that sterling performance and the technical gold and two silver won in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Team Nigeria had performed below expectation in the Olympic Games. The Tokyo outing is just one of its worst in recent times.
Issues bedevilling our sports development include ill-preparation, institutional failure, lack of sporting equipment, corruption, among others. The disqualification of ten of our athletes by the Athletes Integrity Unit for failing to meet the minimum requirements of three-out of competition tests within 10 months of a major track and field competition underscored our not being serious. The affected athletes were alleged to have violated Rule 15 of the Anti-doping regulations. The government must investigate what led to the disqualification and punish those responsible for the show of shame. The bickering in the Athletes Federation of Nigeria (AFN) must have affected Team Nigeria’s outing. PUMA’s termination of its $2.7 million kit deal with Nigeria, without alternative plan must be probed.
All of this undermined the performance of our athletes. It is good that the Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Mr. Sunday Dare, has apologised to the affected athletes and Nigerians over the poor outing, and has set up a new Medical and Anti-doping Commission for a foolproof system of testing. This clearly illustrates our ill-preparedness for the event, in spite of having more than four years before it. There is need for a thorough inquest into the poor outing of Team Nigeria in Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Beyond that, our sports development must start at the grassroots level where talents will be discovered and adequately nurtured for future sporting events. The neglect of grassroots sports has hampered our participation in major regional and global sports events. Again, this is the right time to start the preparation for the next Olympics in Paris, France in 2024. For impactful outing in France, we must begin now to identify sports in which we have comparative advantage and invest more resources in them. Our team handlers must remember that the end of every Olympics marks the beginning of another one.
