Modern sports have become a multi-trillion dollar business. What with the global attention on the variety of competitions at school, community, national, regional, sub-regional, continental and global levels. Sports have moved from fun and entertainment levels for physical fitness to skills-training and the polishing of individual or team talents. Teams often compete for entertainment and to win prizes, medals, national and personal pride and everything in between.
The Olympic Games is the greatest sporting even in history for almost 3000 years. Its origin is in ancient Greece with the Olympian games from the 8th century BC to 4th century AD. It takes place every four years. Even though there are various stories about the history of the modern Olympic games, one thing is sure, the Olympics is the most anticipated and admired sporting competition in the world.
The symbolic logo of the Olympics, the inter-linked multi-colored rings represents the colors found in the flags of most countries across the globe. In modern times, there have been plans for stateless citizens and even refugees to take part in the Olympics. The humans living with disabilities are incorporated in the Paralympics that happens just after the summer Olympics. The Olympics has developed to a level where what counts is not always the winning of country or individual medals but the beauty and excitement of participation.
Participating in the Olympics is the pride of every portsperson and nation. Beyond national pride and patriotism, individuals win medals for themselves and break and create records that stand in their names. So competing in the games goes beyond national pride to personal glories and the joy of participation. The global Olympic body is the International Olympic Committee (IOC) while serious countries often have their own local Olympic Organizing Committees (OOC) aimed at organizing and strategizing for the games.
Winning medals by most countries during the Olympics is always a direct result of the level of sports development and interest in various sports across the world. It is interesting to see how certain sports when well-coordinated are signature sports of certain countries given their physiology and practice. Individuals of African descent often show superiority in athletics and football, the Chinese often excel in swimming, table tennis and precision games, the Scandinavians and Europeans often show strength in hiking, cycling and similar sports. The Americans are often excellent at gymnastics, basketball and athletics.
The Roundtable Conversation is really not totally surprised that at the time of this piece, the 9th of August, Nigeria, a country with the largest black population in the world has not won a single medal of any category. The only surprise has been that brilliant and spectacular Tobi Amusan did not qualify for her 100 Meters hurdles. Former Olympic gold winner at the 1996 Los Angeles Olympics, Chioma Ajunwa expressed her heartbreak at the unfortunate loss for a place in the finals just like many Nigerians.
Earlier in the games, Nigeria suffered series of embarrassing moments. Favour Offili whose name was missed out by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) inTokyo’2020 suffered again at Paris’24 Olympics, her name did not appear in the list for qualified athletes. The AFN failed to register her for the Olympics despite her qualifying. She cried and was heartbroken. It was such an embarrassing moment for the nation.
Just as Nigeria was reeling from that embarrassment, the Nigerian Cycling federation seems to have failed Ese Ukpeseraye as she was seen on social media thanking the German Track Team for providing her with a track Bike after she received a late call up for the Keirin and Sprint events at #Paris’2024. She was wearing Nigerian jersey and riding a track bike provided by the German Team that had a spare.
Nneka Annette Echikunwoke, a Nigerian American hammer Thrower was disappointed by the tacky preparation for the Tokyo’2020 Olympics. She had prepared to represent Nigeria in Japan but was failed by the Nigerian federation citing what they termed, ‘administrative error’. They had missed the doping tests and as such many Nigerian athletes were disqualified from competing.
For #Paris’24, Nneka decided to fly the flag of her second country, the United States of America. She made history for Team USA, becoming the first ever Olympic female medalist in Women’s Hammer with a top throw of 75.48 meters winning Silver. She might have flown the Nigerian flag but the country lost out of the chance. As I write, the country has no single medal!
The Olympics is not just the area of international sports competition that the sports ministry or other sports bodies have embarrassed Nigeria while disappointing the athletes. In football, the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has been one huge house of commotion. If it is not owing the coaches and players, it is messing up the kitting of the team. At a certain FIFA competition, NFF forgot to carry the designated jersey and had to improvise by cutting the tracksuits for the team to compete in.
Global Sports is one huge talent/skill developer and money spinner that Nigeria with its huge youth population has consistently failed to leverage on. Sadly, it is not strictly for lack of finance. It is more of a systemic dysfunction where a lot is taken for granted by government agencies and ministries. The appointment of those who run sports at all leves are often not merit based. Nigeria at the last Women’s World Cup hosted by Australia and New Zealand caused a scandal when it needed the intervention of Ian Wright to pay the girls.
Successive Nigerian governments through the Sports ministry have often been one huge contradiction in the development and organization of sports in the country. Beyond the Olympics, there is no serious systemic investment in grassroots sports through which children are caught early and their talents groomed for global relevance and skill-polishing. Nigeria is one of the most blessed with human and material resources but visionary leadership in all sectors seems to be lacking.
The number of Nigerians across the globe representing other countries in various sports or even playing at the different football leagues across the world speak of the talents Nigeria is endowed with. Some sportsmen and women have been lured by other countries across the world and they typically excel with training infrastructure and good welfare. The lack of punishment and reward in the governance structure in Nigeria is reason the country seems to be retrogressing especially in sports.
For a country with the number of talents like Nigeria not to plan for the benefits that come from the sporting world is very embarrassing. The teeming young people that would be gainfully employed through the various agencies that run the different associations is just a tip of the benefits that come from well-run sports ministry and their agencies .
Countries that understand the value of sports invest heavily in sports development. This investment is always backed by competent management that are not political appointees. Professional in the different sports are not rare. The football leagues across the world have thriving academies that groom young footballers that ecell in their games. Football across the world is now a multi-billion dollar business that serious countries are investing everything to have a slice of.
Youth unemployment in Nigeria can be cut in half if local, state and the federal governments invest in grassroots sports development. Investment in sports is not just about budgeting for competitions, it involves getting the best strategic plans to develop all sports especially those ones like athletics, football and weight-lifting, boxing etc. that the country is blessed in abundance with.
Development of talents must be taken seriously in ways that talents can be caught young like in other countries or even as it was in the immediate post-civil war era in Nigeria in the 70s, 80s and 90s that now seem like centuries back when Nigerian flag flew high at global competitions including the Olympics. How is it that Nigerian glory at the 1996 Olympics with all the gold medals in long jump and football cannot be replicated anymore? There seems to be little or no progress.
Human capital must be developed for it to be fully functional and rewarding. Those running Nigerian sports seem very uninspiring. Why do we continue to export talents and not benefit from what we have? Why is the average footballer or athlete in Nigeria wishing to go to Europe or America or just about any country but Nigeria? It is the loudest voice about the environment that has been failing to develop and sustain talents.
It is very ironical that most of the very impressive Tigress basketball team that proudly won the Afro-basketball tournament last year are made up of Nigerian-Americans with the very successful Rena Wakama, herself a Nigerian-American as their coach that led them to set an African record at the #Paris’24 basketball team. Tobi, the very successful hurdler, Brume the Long jumper and many other athletes are all based outside the country and benefitting from the good facilities and good coaches.
Nigeria must for the first time have an audit of the performance of the Team Nigeria that allegedly had a huge budget of N2.6 billion for the #Paris’24 alone. What value did Nigerian tax payers get from the outing? Is it just a regular jamboree or did the sports ministry and the local Olympic Committee put in the necessary efforts? It’s a shame that smaller countries with fewer resources managed to perform better than Nigeria not just in medal wins but in the organization of events that didn’t embarrass either the athlete or their countries. We all have a stake in sports as the most unifying sector of the nation. We must do the needful. Heads must roll if we are serious.
• The dialogue continues…
, 44
, 41
)
– 1 medal (
