Considering his disastrous performance at the ongoing Olympics Games in Paris, it is apt to say that the spirit of the poster boy of Nigerian table tennis and Africa’s number one player, Quadri Aruna, is willing to carry on but his body is getting weaker.
Without a doubt, the current world number 17 and the highest ranked player in Africa at the moment, has made so many accomplishments in the ping-pong game. He has followed in the footsteps of the legendary Atanda Musa whose name was synonymous with table tennis when most of us were growing up.
Many kids who wanted to play the sport in the 70s and 80s aspired to be like the great Atanda Musa who represented Nigeria at two Olympics Games and was rated number 20 in the world at some point.
Before he featured at the 1988 Olympics, Atanda Ganiyu Musa had won the table tennis singles event at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1982. He also partnered with Sunday Eboh to win the men’s doubles at the event.
He also won table tennis doubles gold medal at the 1986 Commonwealth Games and made a clean sweep of gold in each of the singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles events at the 1987 All Africa Games. Atanda also combined with Bose Koffo to win the Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold in 1991.
Atanda who was famous for his backhand play and the loop associated with it, was a 10-time African singles champion. Born in 1960, the numerous achievements of Atanda no doubt inspired other famous Nigerian table tennis players like Bode Biodun, Yomi Bankole, Bose Koffo, Kazeem Nosiru, Monday Merotohun, Olufunke Oshonaike, Segun Toriola, Cecilia Otu Offiong and a host of others who dominated the continent at different periods.
Interestingly, after the exit of the ageless Toriola and Oshonaike, Aruna automatically became the face of Nigerian table tennis. It is, therefore, not surprising that he is the most successful Nigerian player based on ITTF rankings. Before the ongoing Olympics in Paris, he was ranked 17th after his victory at the 2023 ITTF African Championship in Rades.
Even as his latest ranking in the world is worthy of mention, it will be recalled that in May 2022, Aruna was ranked 10th in the world. That astronomical rise has remained the highest by any Nigerian table tennis player.
Paris 2024 where Aruna has flopped is actually his fourth appearance at the Olympics having represented Nigeria at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 editions of the Games in London, Rio de Janiero and Tokyo respectively. It was in his second Olympic Games that Aruna recorded the most remarkable achievement of his illustrious career on the world stage.
The 35 year old Nigerian caused a major upset in the second round of the men’s singles at the 2016 Olympics Games when he outclassed number 5 seed Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan 4-0. Buoyed by that master class performance, Aruna followed up with another spectacular win over German player Timo Boll to reach a historic quarter-final at the Olympics.
Although he eventually bowed out in the quarter-final match against the Chinese star player Ma Long who went on to win the gold medal, Aruna had demonstrated enough grit and dexterity to attract global attention.
However, the player who won the 2017 ITTF Africa Championship gold medal and finished second the following year failed to maintain the momentum at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Even as he went into the competition as Africa’s highest ranked player, he was beaten 2-4 (15-13, 9-11, 6-11, 11-7, 7-11, 6-11) in the third round by Brazil’s Gustavo Tsuboi.
Sadly, Aruna had another opportunity in Paris to atone for the disappointment in Tokyo but he completely bungled the chance to redeem himself. As Africa’s number one table tennis player, many didn’t foresee his early exit from the Paris Olympic Games. Unfortunately, unlike his previous outings at the Olympics in 2016 and 2020, Aruna was sent packing in the most embarrassing manner by a 19-year old player.
In their round of 64 clash, the boy from Romania, Eduard Ionescu, who is 16 years younger than Aruna staged a comeback to eliminate the more endowed Nigerian who had shot into the lead by taking the first three sets.
Although the youngster’s rally brought him level at 3-3, the expectation was that Aruna would compose himself to take the deciding set. But that didn’t happen as the Romanian stunned the bigger and more famous Nigerian to punch his ticket to the next round.
The disappointing performance of Aruna has indeed cast a huge shadow of doubt on his ability to continue to represent Nigeria on the world stage. He may be tempted to play on in order to win at least one of the major trophies like the African Games gold medal that has continued to elude him, age is no longer on his side.
Well, the reigning African number one player may wish to continue with his professional career as a player of TTC Rhonsprudel Maberzell Fulda in the German Bundesliga Table Tennis but he must sit down and reflect on his international future. His spirit may be urging him on but nobody needs a seer to know that Aruna’s body is becoming weak.
If the player who was named the Star Player of year 2014 by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) can lose in such a disgraceful manner to a teenager in the full glare of the world, the law of diminishing returns has caught up with him.
Therefore, those who are close to Aruna should advise him to leave the international stage now that the ovation is still loud. My harmless advice is not based on one incident. In recent times, he has been blowing hot and cold.
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