For keen sports observers, Team Nigeria’s pathetic performance at the just-concluded Rio 2016 Olympic Games is not strange. Save for a solitary bronze medal from the U-23 football team coached by Samson Siasia, the humiliation would have been complete. The relief of our boastful officials was evident in the celebrations that followed the Dream Team VI’s 3-2 victory over Honduras in the third-place match. Really, that result does not wipe out the shame of another dismal outing for Nigeria.
The return of one medal from a contingent of 78 athletes is in keeping with the misadventure of our athletes in recent international games. With the abundant talents available in the country, this should provoke a sober reflection in the sports community. In all, Nigeria participated in 10 sports, including boxing, table tennis and weightlifting.
Generally, preparations for the Games that held from August 5 to 21, were chaotic. Funds were released at the eleventh hour, a recurring loophole for public officials to enrich themselves. This does not give room for optimal deployment. As a result, athletes and coaches literally went through hell. Camp allowances were delayed, even during the Games. The footballers were chased out of their hotel in Atlanta, United States, having overstayed for 16 days. According to Siasia, the team’s luggage was thrown out, and for two days, they could not train. They arrived for their first group match against Japan in Manaus six hours before kick-off.
That they managed to win a bronze is a feat because the fiasco repeated itself in Brazil. Mikel Obi, the captain, had to pay $4,600 from his own resources to defray the hotel bill during the competition. The bright spot for the Dream Team was the doggedness of the players on the pitch. Their tenacity amid this confusion, earned them a rare reward from a Japanese surgeon, Katsuya Takasu, who shelled out $390,000 to players and officials. For a team that won a gold in Atlanta ’96 and silver in Beijing 2008, Rio offered some comfort.
The basketball team suffered similar woes. Two key players – Festus Ezeli and Al-Farouk Aminu of Portland – withdrew at the last minute because Nigeria could not pay their insurance cover as demanded by their American club. In athletics, the women’s 4×100 metres relay team came last in the final; the men did not even qualify for the Games. Blessing Okagbare, who used to embody national hope, did not click. It was a nightmarish experience.
But the debacle should be properly situated: it was never the fault of the athletes. They put in their all, but in a very competitive environment, the best triumphed. It is disheartening that the government has not learnt any lessons from the disaster that attended the London 2012 Games, in which we recorded zero medal. In contrast, South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk won the men’s 400 metres with an unbelievable new world record of 43.03 seconds. Kenya placed 15th overall, securing six gold medals and 13 in total.
Apart from disarticulated funding, our sports suffer a lot in the hands of naïve administrators. Since 1999, the government has been appointing mostly inexperienced sports ministers, who, we surmise, are supposed to learn on the job. They do not have the luxury of long tenure to carry out strategic reforms. This has to be looked into. The incumbent, Solomon Dalung, is an obvious example. He has put every foot wrong, interfering in the affairs of federations. His meddling should stop. In conjunction with the Nigeria Olympic Committee, he should concentrate on how to raise funds from the public and private sectors ahead of future international events.
However, the way out is to prepare well. That is what the successful nations do. A majority of them have identified their medal prospects for the Tokyo 2020 Games, while Nigeria does not even know what to do next. These countries have a four-year cycle to train their athletes. Britain, for instance, which came second in Rio 2016, has an eight-year cycle, funded to the tune of £387 million per annum with contributions from the National Lottery and the British Exchequer. Where Nigerian athletes have been abandoned to fend for themselves by struggling to compete in different competitions, top British athletes can attract up to £60,000 annually in sponsorship. This is the way forward.
These countries also pay attention to little details. The British female hockey team that won the gold in Rio against the favourites, Holland, used lateral thinking, which was developed by Danny Kerry, the performance director. He said, “Everyone puts a lot of time into the physiological effects of hockey, but what we’ve done in this Olympic cycle is put our players in an extremely fatigued state, and then ask them to think very hard at the same time. We call that Thinking Thursday – forcing them to consistently make excellent decisions under that fatigue. We’ve done that every Thursday for a year.”
Success does not come easy at the Olympics, but we can start now to reverse our appalling fortunes. We need to return to the model that produced the Mary Onyalis, Falilat Ogunkoyas, Chidi Imohs, Yusuf Alis and Chioma Ajunwas. The sports authorities should not only quickly revive scholarship grants to athletes, which will enable them to train and study overseas, a conscious effort should be made to discover more talents. To motivate the athletes, part of the special funds raised by the NOC should be used to reward medallists. This is the tradition elsewhere, including the US, where the Olympic committee gives a gold medallist $25,000. A gold medallist in Singapore got $753,000, while those from Indonesia and Azerbaijan got $255,000 and $230,000 each respectively.
The catch-them-young programme should not be a mere rhetoric; it should be implemented by the three tiers of government. Talents identified should be groomed for international assignments. To complement the reform, the National Sports Festival should be rejuvenated. In this regard, state governments should make sports an integral part of schooling at the primary and secondary levels. For now, private schools are guilty of not providing facilities for sports. A re-worked policy should make such provision a mandatory requirement for their registration by government.
