Although the curtains will officially fall on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics tomorrow, the unsuccessful outing of the Women’s 4x100m relay team on Thursday effectively brought to an end Team Nigeria’s participation at the games.
Team Nigeria only managed to avoid a repeat of the sporting disaster that was witnessed at the London 2012 Olympics when Nigerian failed to win a single medal.
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Nigeria’s saving grace were Blessing Oborodudu and Ese Brume who won silver in Women’s 68k wrestling event and bronze in women’s long jump respectively. These two medals came after days of embarrassing defeats inflicted by opponents on Team Nigeria athletes.
Consequently, even as many may look at the two medals as drops of rain in an ocean, it was a huge relief for the Nigerian delegation to Tokyo.
Before the games, the Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare had raised hopes of millions of Nigerians with the assurance that Team Nigeria would surpass the achievement recorded at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
However, at the games proper, it was a free fall for Team Nigeria as most of the medal hopefuls failed to rise to the occasion. Even when the likes of Esther Toko, Uche Eke, Jide Omotayo, Godwin Olufua, Anuoluwapo Opeyori, Dorcas Adesokan and others, kept stumbling out of the games, expectations were that athletes like Aruna Quadri, Odunayo Adekuoroye, Blessing Okagbare, Enoch Adegoke and Tobi Amusan and a host of others would wipe away the shame.
Unfortunately, when it was their turn to salvage what was becoming an embarrassing situation, it was the same old story as some were disqualified while others performed abysmally.
Already there are talks about returning to the drawing board to prepare for the next Olympics in Paris in 2024. However, as Nigerians continue to analyze the outing in Tokyo, Trust Sports also takes a look at the five most disappointing performances of Team Nigeria.
1. Odunayo Adekuoroye
Reigning Commonwealth champion Odunayo Adekuoroye was without doubt Team Nigeria’s biggest flop. Before the games, she was a strong medal contender. The 27-year-old Ondo State native had established herself globally as one of the best wrestlers in the 57kg category by winning world championship medals. Having reached the quarter-finals at the 2016 Games in Rio, expectations were high that with her current form and world rating, she would make a podium finish in Tokyo. Unfortunately, she crashed out in her first match of the campaign. Although she raced to an 8-0 lead against Anastasia Nichita from Moldova, with a minute to go, the unexpected happened as she miscalculated and was pinned by her opponent who was an underdog in the Women’s 57kg Freestyle wrestling contest. Her unexpected loss came as a rude shock to millions of Nigerians.
Just like every other Nigerian, Wrestling Federation Caretaker Chairman, Daniel Igali who won wrestling gold medal for Canada at Sydney 2000 admitted it will take Adekuoroye time to get over the defeat.
“Understandably, she is inconsolable. She feels she has disappointed a whole nation. We feel her pain. We are equally pained because over 80 per cent of wrestling enthusiasts favoured her to pluck gold here in Tokyo. But God’s ways are not our ways,” the wrestling federation boss philosophized.
2. Aruna Quadri
The poster boy of Nigeria table tennis and Africa’s number one player was not only optimistic of returning with a medal but vowed to end the dominance of the Chinese. It was, however, not to be as the Nigerian failed to replicate his Rio Olympics feat where he booked a quarter final berth.
Based on his world ranking, Quadri joined the fray in Tokyo in the third round. Unfortunately, he was bundled out in his first match by a less fancied Brazilian Gustavo Tsuboi who was ranked lower than him. Quadri had started the game on a bright note winning the first set 15-13. However, he lost in the latter sets as it ended 4-2 in favour of Tsuboi.
“That’s sports for you. I am a better player than him in ranking but he played very much better to win. You know anyone in the top 100 can spring a surprise at any time. I did not underrate him because we play in the Bundesliga and I know what he’s capable of doing,” said Quadri after the shock exit.
3. Funke Oshonaike
Oshonaike was making her seventh appearance at the Olympics. However, she also put up a dismal performance as she lost 4-1 to American Juan Liu in the preliminary round of women’s singles of the table tennis event.
Despite starting well against the Chinese-born American, Oshonaike could not meet up with the speed of her left-handed opponent to bow out 7-11, 3-11, 4-11, 13-11, 4-11 to become the first Nigerian to exit the table tennis event.
However, Oshonaike remains proud of her efforts in Tokyo as she became the first African woman to compete at seven Olympics.
She also became the first female table tennis player to appear at seven Olympics. Even as she has ruled herself out of eighth Olympics appearance, she is not retiring just yet.
It will be recalled that Oshonaike made her Olympic debut in Atlanta in 1996. She then went on to play at the 2000 Sydney Games, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016.
4. D’Tigers and D’Tigress
D’Tigers and D’Tigress who made history as the first teams from Africa to qualify for men and women’s basketball events at the same edition were tipped to make waves. The men’s team in particular had stunned both world number 1 and 4, USA and Argentina in pre-Olympics games in Las Vegas to send warnings to all countries coming to Tokyo for the basketball event but that was where it ended for them.
Sadly, D’Tigers were bundled out at the group stage as they lost 80-71 to Italy in their third and final group game.
After losing to Australia 67-84 in their group opener and 92-99 to Germany in their second Group B match, expectations were high that D’Tigers would get their claws back against the Italians but they again faltered to exit the games ingloriously.
Similarly, their women compatriots, D’Tigress, failed to lift their game and consequently succumbed 102-83 to hosts Japan in their final group match.
They had lost 72-81 to basketball superpower, USA and 87-62 to France in Group B of the Women’s basketball event.
5. 4X400m mixed relay
Team Nigeria failed to qualify for the semi-final after finishing last in their heat of the 4×400 mixed relay. Team Nigeria was represented by Ifeanyi Emmanuel Ojeli, Imaobong Nse Uko, Samson Oghenewegba Nathaniel and Patience Okon George. During the race, Nigeria deployed the male-female-male-female strategy while other countries used male-female-female-male formation. Ojeli took the first leg, Uko second and the third leg was taken by Nathaniel, who opened up a gap of over 100 metres against other female runners. However, the male runners from other teams caught up with George, causing the Nigerian team to finish the race in the most embarrassing manner. The only consolation was that the relay team was able to set a new African record in the 4×400 mixed relay with a time of 3:13.60 seconds.
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