Poor Preparations Will Limit Team Nigeria’s Performance At Tokyo Olympics- Stakeholders

With the Tokyo Olympics coming up in a few weeks, sports stakeholders and athletes have not set medal targets for Team Nigeria on the account of poor preparedness for the games.

The Tokyo Olympics will begin in the next few weeks from July 23 and run through August 8, but Nigeria only concluded the selection process for its athletes late June in Lagos.

The last phase of Team Nigeria’s camping will be in Kisarazu, Japan, from July 3 to 23.

In this year’s event, the International Olympic Committee will host 33 events, as five new games have been added.

With baseball and softball, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing added, this means 18 new events and 474 extra athletes will appear on the Olympic program.

Saidu Musa, a bronze badge chair umpire of the International Tennis Federation and the Director of the recently concluded J5 Tennis World Tour, held in Abuja told THE WHISTLER that he does not expect anything new from Team Nigeria.

Nigeria has only won 25 Olympics medals which are 3 gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze medals.

The most historic gold medal came from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where the men’s football team defeated Brazil and Argentina in an epic match.

Buttressing his views, Musa said, ” I Am also going to the Olympics as an official. I’m going to be officiating at the Paralympics. If we come out with good results, good luck to Nigeria, but I will not lie to you, I am not expecting anything different from what we have been doing, because we never get prepared for anything.

“We wait for the last minute before we start rushing. You know the Olympics are every four years. So, if you know the Olympics are every four years, you start two years back so that you have six years to prepare, know the athlete you want to use.

“You don’t just wake up overnight and you are doing a trial two months to the Olympics and you want to choose the athletes that will go for the Olympics.”

Anthony Asuquo, a former technical Director of the Nigerian Gymnastics Federation and the founder, TIG Gymnastics, in an interview with THE WHISTLER said the preparations for the Olympic games was too short to bank hopes for many medals.

He said Team Nigeria should go out there and do their best, because our preparation is short. Good things will come out from wrestling, possibly taekwondo and from Uche Eke. Sports is a sport everybody knows, sometimes you can’t predict it.”

Nigeria for the first time has a gymnast at the Olympics. Uche Eke made history for the country.

Speaking on his expectations, he said, “At the Olympics, Uche will do very well based on what he can do for now, but the technical and psychological aspect of it is another one. The psychological aspect is when he is going out of track, because emotion can turn athletes around. If he gets the right coaches around him. One thing is for you to be good, but you need coaches to fix things. He can’t do more than his capacity.”

Babalola Gideon, Nigeria’s gold and silver medalist in badminton, who has also represented Nigeria since 2010 told THE WHISTLER that the Olympics would be very tough for Team Nigeria.

Gideon who was ranked highest Nigerian badminton player in the world believes that despite the inadequate preparation for the Olympics, Nigeria should not be ruled out.

He believes that the representatives in badminton would put in lots of effort to win the country a medal.

He said, “We are very lucky that we have two players from Lagos, they are the number one and two in Nigeria presently. They are the best doubles in Nigeria now based on paper work. We have Dorcas African number one and Nigeria’s number one representing Nigeria in the ladies singles. The fact is that the guys are very good, I believe they are prepared very well for it and am very sure they will put all their best in the tournament. They can do well and represent the country.”

For Godwin Emmanuel, the founder of Ogis Badminton Network, the team may lack the exposure compared to the counterparts in Europe and America, but he sees the badminton team doing well.

“If you want to look at the medal prospects, the players will try their best. Looking at the historical outings they were not given the exposure early enough recently the Badminton Federation have tried. For me I can’t say if they will come back with medals. It is only when they go to the court that would determine the outcome. We know our players are young well but they need more support. They need more exposure. They will do well when we get to the Olympics,” he said.

Daniel Alegbe, a basketball player who is flying his trade with a division two side, Solid Heat, predicted a good outing for the team, but does not see the basketball team going beyond the quarterfinals.

“I believe Nigeria will do well, but they have to put up the fight because as a whole the Nigerian basketball has been going through a lot of challenges. I believe they can probably escape the round of 16,” Alegbe said.