Nigeria’s 1996 Olympic feat, the best in her history, is already beginning to sound like a broken record. That year’s Games held in the City of Atlanta, USA offered the country her biggest breakthrough in the international sporting arena when her contingent bagged 2 gold,1 silver and 3 bronze medals.
Organised sports pre-dates the country’s independence. In the 1950s up until the early 60s
Before independence, there were Nigerians who took the world sporting arena by storm. The likes of Emmanuel lfejuna who won a gold medal in high jump at the 1954 Commonwealth Games, Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey won the world featherweight boxing crown in 1957 and Dick Tiger who won the middleweight crown and later the world light heavyweight crown.
In post independence Nigeria, sports began to take serious roots in 1963 when the National Sports Commission (NSC) was formed with revered sports administrator, Abraham Ordia as secretary. The 60’s was a gestation period which saw the qualification of the national for the Olympic Games held in Mexico in 1968.
Nigeria first participated in the Olympic Games in 1952, and has sent athletes to compete in every Summer Olympic Games since then, except for the boycotted 1976 Summer Olympics. Since then, the country has been able to win just 23 medals. A breakdown of the medals show 3 gold, 8 silver and 12 bronze medals. Apart from the Dream Team that won gold in 1996 soccer championship the rest of the medals have either been won through athletics, boxing and weightlifting.
The country won her first medal at the Olympics, a bronze in boxing through Nojeem Maiyegun in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Isaac Ikuoria followed suit at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Between Los Angeles ’84 Games and Beijing 2008 Nigeria produced the following sportsmen and women who won medals of different colours at the Olympics.
Chioma Ajunwa
First Nigerian Olympic gold medallist Chioma Ajunwa, Peter Konyegwachi, Mary Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya, Sunday Uti, Moses Ugbusien, Rotimi Peters, Innocent Egbunike, Olapade Adeniken, Davidson Ezinwa, Chidi Imoh, Oluyemi Kayode, Osmond Ezinwa, David Izonritei, Richard Igbineghu, Beatrice Utondu, Christy Opara-Thompson, Mary Onyali, Faith Idehen, Nduka Awazie, Fidelis Gadzama, Clement Chukwu, Jude Monye, Sunday Bada, Enefiok Udo-Obong, Blessing Okagbare, among others. The two Nigeria football teams that won gold in 1996 and silver in 2008 Olympics deserve a special place in the annals of Nigeria’s sporting history
Nigeria’s performances at the Olympics have been lacklustre. The number of medals won so far tell the story. The sorry state of Nigeria sport was best crystallised at the London 2012 Games when the country’s contingent returned empty-handed.
At the Commonwealth Games level, the country has been a force to be reckoned with. From 1950 when she first made an appearance, Nigeria has won at least a medal in every of the games attended. To date, Nigeria has won 61gold, 66 silver and 85 bronze totalling 212 medals. Victoria Games in 1994 with 37 medals and Glasgow Games in 2014 with 36 medals produced the highest number of medals for the country.
Nigeria’s strength in sports could best be seen in the African continent. With a dominant performance in the closing stages of the just-concluded 2015 African Games, the country really proved her worth when she finished second, behind Egypt on the final medal table.
The country maintained her top position in athletics, weightlifting and power-lifting, wrestling, boxing and ball games. The biggest disappointment came from football where only the male team returned with a bronze as the pre-games favourites, the Super Falcons failed flat without a medal.
There was however, a lot to worry about in athletics as the country lost grip of the sprints. For the first time in recent history, Nigerian sprinters were beaten in both mens and womens 100 and 200 metres final in Africa.
Nigeria’s poor outing at the London Olympics sparked off outrage and government reacted by organising a presidential retreat where all stakeholders were invited to take another look at the country’s sports. A lot of recommendations were made but as is always the case with similar exercises in the past, those recommendations may end up in the trash can.
Despite being ranked outside the top 50 in the world by FIFA, Nigeria’s remarkable achievements in age-group competitions cannot be ignored. For instance, the country won the first FIFA U-16(now U-17) World Cup in 1985 in China. Ever since, the Golden Eaglets have annexed the trophy three other times. Nigeria is the most successful nation in the tournament’s history, with four titles and three runners up.
In the U-20 category, the country’s best has been two runners-up medals in 1989 and 2005. The crowning glory of Nigeria’s youth programme was the 1996 Olympic gold medal won in Atlanta.
However, the success at the junior level has not been transferred to the senior level.
In the continental level, apart from the 1973 All Africa Games gold medal in Lagos, Nigeria has won the Africa Cup of Nations 3 times, continental club trophies by Enyimba (two times African champions), IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan, Rangers International of Enugu and BCC Lions of Gboko.
HAPPY BUNCH … D’Tigers savouring their moment of glory.
Some of Nigeria’s best have naturalised in other lands achieving milestones for their adopted countries. Hakeem Olajuwon, a basketball icon became an American citizen and in 1996, Olajuwon was a member of the Olympic gold-medal-winning United States national team. Francis Obikwelu won a silver medal for Portugal at the Athens Olympics while Gloria Alozie who represented Nigeria at the Sidney Olympics took Spanish citizenship afterwards. Often, the cause of defection has always been attributed to neglect and lack of care by Nigeria officials.
Apart from these known cases of home-bred athletes defecting to other countries, there are numerous other cases of Nigerians in the diaspora representing the countries they live in.
Nigerian sports can only get better when excellence becomes the yardstick for selection of athletes for international assignments, when appointments are devoid of political considerations and when policy implementation becomes consistent.
Sports must also return to the schools and a deliberate grassroots development programme must be in place. Retraining the technical officials should also be on the front burner. However, all this will come to naught if the country continues to change sports ministers. For every minister that comes brings his own style, team and at times his own ideas on how sports should be run.
In all this however, Nigerian sports have done more for the country than any other sector of the polity since independence in 1960.
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