Bose Kaffo remains a household name across the continent following her exploits in table tennis having won 15 medals including seven gold medals at the African Games between 1987 and 2007. Kaffo, who is the third Nigerian female athlete to have competed in five Olympic Games alongside Mary Onyali and Olufunke Oshonaike is a Master’s Degree holder in Sports Science. Here she goes down memory lane in an interview with OLALEKAN OKUSAN.
Bose Kaffo is regarded as one of the talented table tennis players to have emerged from Nigeria after winning some 15 medals including seven gold medals in the five African Games between 1987 and 2007.
A certified ITTF qualified table tennis course conductor and a coach, Kaffo, reminisces on her experience at the Olympic Games, adding the quadrennial games is not just about competing but rallying for global unity.
“My first Olympic Games was in Barcelona 1992 and it was fabulous and wonderful,” she began.
“Then, I was so energetic and the expectation was without boundaries as I could compete with anybody in the world; there was no fear about winning and it was quite an experience to play with the world best in my first Olympic Games.
“My second Olympics experience was unique and the uniqueness of the Olympic movement is about the cultural significance of the game itself. It is hosted on different platforms with different athletes coming from different countries and different continents carrying the flags of their nations.
“ It was a good experience and unique to see all cultures coming together as one to be friends and this is actually one of the moral reasons because it is about respect for one another and respect for the social environment. The spirit of sports is so unique and you can only find that at the Olympics with 24 hours feeding and 24 hours access to everything you want at the Games Village,” Kaffo recalled.
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Kaffo last appearance at the Olympic Games was at Beijing 2008 in China and described her final hurrah as an honour: “My experience as a five-time Olympian is something I cannot imagine when my journey to the games started in 1992.
“I just wanted to play table tennis because I love the sport because it has taken me to where I cannot ever have imagined. So, being there five times is something I would cherish forever in my life.
“It was quite a long journey but I would have loved to have won a medal at the Olympic Games. In all, it was a fantastic experience and I am so grateful for the privilege to represent my country.
“Of course, it is not about being a five-time Olympian but it is about the quality of life, God has given me and I kept on understanding the meaning of the Olympics because it is just a wonderful experience.”
Kaffo, believes this year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games faced a lot of challenges due to the COVID-19 forced the postponement of the games by one year while the withdrawal of some of the best athletes took away some shine from the games.
“This year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo was hampered by COVID-19 because the pandemic affected a lot of things and we are not going to see the best participating in it because we have lost a lot of things and people probably a few of them might have qualified for the Olympics. We are going to see that the quality of people will drop and we are going to see the resilience of people that will just be at the games.
“When Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the games, talked about the Olympics; he was thinking about the participation and a lot of things might have been lost. This year we will see a lot of culture on display at the games while commercialization and professionalism will be on display. There will be more broadcasting because of the pandemic and the quality of those that might win the Olympics may not be high but above all, the essence of the game is to gather people together and celebrate humanity and the unity of the world.
“I hope that this Olympism spirit will prosper everybody in sports, there are some that are not participating but they have contributed immensely to the growth of the Olympics.
“The Olympics should not be a do or die affair because there are lots of costs that have gone into it but I pray that the meaning of participation will be justified,” she added.
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