In some other
countries of the world, a bronze medal at the Olympics is not something
to be talked about or celebrated. Not even silver is satisfactory
sometimes, just remember that look on Russian athlete Yulia Efimova’s
face as her arch-rival, Lilly King of the United States took the gold in
100m women’s breastroke swimming.
Nothing but gold
is good enough – afterall, the Olympics is the biggest showcase of human
talent on the planet and a demonstration of man’s capacity to express
himself or herself to the limits and excel. In the US for example, there
is an obsession with gold at the Olympics, this being an extension of
the average America’s patriotism-driven belief that the United States is
the centre of the universe. The US has the largest number of gold
medals in Olympics history.
“Go for Gold” is
the classic Olympics slogan, but we have also seen in the on-going Rio
Olympics, episodes after episodes and tales of human ingenuity in
addition to memorable events: so much hardwork and dedication - Michael
Phelps winning three gold medals and still counting, so far bringing his
total Olympic gold medals to a record 21, Uzbekistan’s 41-year old
Oksana Chusovitina participating in her seventh Olympics as the oldest
gymnast on parade, and making it to the finals, 19-year old American
Simon Biles putting pure genius on display in the gymnastics, team
refugees participating for the first time in the Olympics, Kosovo
winning its first Olympic medal (gold!), a marriage proposal on the
field showing love is more important than gold, well, an Egyptian, Sara
Ahmed won a trail-blazing historic bronze in weightlifting, the mighty
falling – Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Venus Williams crashing
out of tennis, Chris Froome coming up short in cycling, and on the side
lines, BBC female presenter, Rebecca Adlington reaching out under the
table to squeeze Mark Foster’s thigh, and on the minus side, the
organisers getting China’s flag wrong, mixing up national anthems
including Nigeria’s, complaints about living conditions at the Rio
Olympics village, and on the streets, a marvelous opening ceremony, and a
generous display of Brazilian female nudity, and on the dark side:
young Brazilian hoodlums, robbing visitors of valuables with such
unpatriotic brazenness. It is less than a week, so far, but the tales
are of characteristically intriguing and historic dimensions.
But again, we
must not forget this: the Olympics is about the victory, and about
national glory and pride. To win the gold, a country must be prepared,
and its athletes must be prepared to show the excellence, the resilience
and the courage that is the hallmark of the event. When the issue is
not about gold however, it is about, on the humanistic side, the kind of
courage in the face of adversity demonstrated by British athlete Derek
Redmond at the 1992 Barcelona Games, when he tore his hamstring and
simply refused to give up, reaching the finish line of the semi-finals,
hanging on his father’s shoulder. The Olympics since the first modern
one in 1896, has been about the human being and the many possibilities
of human aspiration in the face of challenge.
Nigeria has
participated in the Olympics (the Summer Olympics) 15 times, 1952 -2016.
And over that period, this country of over 180 million people, has been
able to win 3 gold medals (Chioma Ajunwa, 1996, Dream Team 1996 Atlanta
Olympics, Men’s 4 x 400 metre relay team, 2000 Sydney Olympics), 8
silver, and 12 bronze medals, making a total of 23 Olympic medals. No
cause for despair. After all, we are better than some 73 countries,
which have never won a single Olympic medal, countries like Somalia,
Chad, Swaziland, Oman, Palau, Benin, Belize, Cape Verde, American Samoa,
Equitorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Congo, Malawi, Mali,
Palestine, Nauru, Lesotho and Oman. My take however is that we could
have done much better, if this had been a different country, if
successive governments had paid more attention to sports as a tool for
international glory and achievement.
Our poor record
is the cumulative effect of the failure of the Nigeria Olympics
Committee, the lack of political will in government at all levels to
promote individual talent in sports on a sustainable basis, and the
Nigerian disease: last-minute syndrome which means everything is done at
the last minute, things that other countries spend years and resources
preparing for, we wade in at the last minute and expect that miracles
would happen. Major breakthroughs in sports in Nigeria as in everything
have been either through miracles or individual sacrifice. Our sports
community, active and retired, is made up therefore of angry and
frustrated men and women who feel that they have been used and forgotten
by their country, the serving ones are so poorly treated they even
sometimes wonder why they are still wearing Nigeria’s caps. At the Rio
2016 Olympics, there is a Lawrence Okolie and a Christine Ohuruogu on
Team Great Britain and yet another Nigerian running up and down for
Italy. Nigeria has got talent. Point.
But we do not
know how to use, nurture or encourage those talents. There are probably
thousands of Michael Phelps in the Niger Delta who can swim from creek
to creek, Olympic style, but who are busy carrying guns and looking for
cheap wealth; if you go to the Mid-West, there are probably hundreds of
girls who can swim better than Lilly King, Yulia Efimova and Katinka
Hosszu put together, but all that talent is probably being wasted in a
thigh-raising whorehouse in Benin or a city in Italy, because the Ogbe
stadium is ruined and nobody has bothered about discovering the natural
flying fishes in that part of the country. When I see the Olympic
gymnasts doing their thing, I think of the many talented young girls in
Nigeria, who due to lack of opportunities are busy putting their lithe,
capable sporty bodies to other uses. Developing the sports sector does
not require too much imagination: you just need to start, catch them
young, groom them, give them opportunity. That is why a 16-year old from
Chile can stand out in archery, and a 19-year old teenager from
America, Simone Biles, can be an embodiment of human perfection. We
have the people, the potentials but…
We are most
certainly not prepared for big events that require state planning. It is
particularly ironic that we have done much better as a country in the
Paralympics – 22 Gold, 11 Silver, 12 Bronze since 1992. You can
interpret that literally, I don’t want to spell it out and offend the
valiant men and women who have done us proud in that alternative
Olympics. What is painful is that Segun Toriola, seven times Nigerian
Olympian had warned us quite early that the preparation for this year’s
Olympics is the “worst Team Nigeria in Olympics history.” Underline the
word, “worst”, and it looks like he is right. Before the Olympics, we
heard the embarrassing story that Nigerian athletes going to the
Olympics- 78 of them, 49 male, 29 female, participating in eight events
(we seem trapped here!) had been asked to go and fund themselves, cap in
hand. To worsen matters, the Sports Minister, the Sports Ministry and
just about anyone who needed to use their brains, started sounding like
Emperors.
The
Nigerian soccer team, called Dream Team VI was stranded in Atlanta,
Georgia, USA, and the Minister’s informed response was “who send them
there?” The teams trip to Brazil was postponed from Friday to Monday, to Tuesday and to Wednesday,
no money, no support. The Dream Team eventually arrived in Brazil on
the wings of charity: Delta Airlines had to airlift them free. They
arrived a few hours to their opening match, jet-lagged, without
allowances, hungry, and with a coach, Samson Siasia, who had also not
been paid for five months, and yet the boys went ahead, to beat Japan,
5-4. That is the spirit of the Olympics. Dream Team VI, (we really like
to dream!) has since qualified for the quarter-finals, and they may well
surprise the world. No one expects that they would, maybe the Nigerian
government (which likes to reap where it has not sown), but whatever
happens, those boys and their coach are heroes already, and should they
manage to win any medal, that medal should be presented to Delta
Airlines, not Nigeria, and when that is happening, Solomon Dalung must
not be anywhere near the room. Well, they say he has apologized, but
must we run Nigeria’s international appearances on the basis of
apology?
That is what we
are doing. Better-focused countries are celebrating gold medals, we are
here celebrating courage in the face of adversity: the biggest story we
would probably take out of the Rio Olympics. Besides the Dream Team VI, I
have seen very enthusiastic comments about how Segun Toriola is a
seventh time Olympian in table tennis, and how Nigeria has produced the
first African to qualify for the Quarter Finals in table tennis in the
person of Aruna Quadri, and the first Nigerian rower, Chierika Ukogu.
Ms Ukogu had to sponsor herself to the Rio Olympics. She had to beg for
funds, and travelled on the wings of charity too. She qualified for the
quarter finals and got Semi-finals C/D ranking and we are now all so
proud of her, but deep in her heart, she would know that the country she
promoted so much at the Rio Olympics, does not really care for her. And
that is sad. There was also the Nigerian basketball team. They put up a
valiant fight for love of country, but I doubt if any one of them is
home-made. When will Nigeria begin to make its own athletes and
geniuses, and not leave its responsibility to pure chance and accidents?
I salute the
courage of all the badly treated and frustrated 78 Nigerian athletes
currently fighting for our country at the Rio Olympics. They are
patriots and they are all deserving of our appreciation for their faith
in Nigeria despite the odds, representing Nigeria, in badly sewn
track-suits. They may not win any medal- we understand! We would still
be proud of them. It is their type that reminds us that indeed, there is
still a country and for that alone, we must be grateful.
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