A Mixed Bag of Fortunes for Nigerian Sports in 2021
Duro Ikhazuagbe
The year 2021 rounding up at midnight today, was a mixed bag of some sort for Nigerian sports. However, the silver and bronze medals won by Blessing Oborududu and Ese Brume in the women’s Wrestling and Long Jump events of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games respectively remain the high points of a year the country was more in the news for the wrong reasons!
The year effectively kicked off with the much postponed National Sports Festival hosted by the Edo State government. It was a refreshing departure from previous games in terms of exquisite facilities provided by the Obaseki/Shaibu administration in the state. The facilities were good enough to host any multi-sports global competition. At the end of the games, Delta State walked away with the overall winners trophy.
Delta won 158 gold, 116 silver and 110 bronze medals, totalling 384 medals. Host, Edo State came second with 129 gold, 104 silver and 108 bronze medals, while Bayelsa State with 56 gold, 55 silver and 58 bronze medals finished third on the medals table. Bayelsa State was indeed the surprise of the pack as they dusted the likes of Rivers, Lagos and Kano states to the podium.
Before Oborodudu’s feat, Odunayo Adekuoroye was the poster girl of Team Nigeria and was expected to deliver the gold in her event. But unfortunately, a technical error cost her returning from the Far East with any medal.
Brume on the other hand, dominated the long jump and even went as far as erasing Chioma Ajunwa’s Atlanta Olympic’s 7.12m feat in the event before proceeding to Tokyo 2020 with a 7.17m. It was not a question of if she was going to medal. It was the colour of the medal that was not clear before the track & field event started. Her bronze was, in the local parlance, ‘a Golden Bronze’.
Blessing Okagbare’s blistering track and field career however ran into troubled waters as World Athletics’ Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) jolted the world with the news of her failed dope test. Okagbare who had qualified for the semi finals of the sprint event was handed a suspension for testing positive to Human Growth Hormone substance. She was eventually handed a ban after confirmation of B sample.
Despite all the embarrassment caused the nation not only by the news of the dope and the disqualification of several other athletes due to non compliance with required out-of-competition tests and their protests, Nigeria’s Sports Minister, Chief Sunday Dare still celebrated the outing. Reason was that it was the country’s best performance in about 13 years. There was no medal at London 2012 and a solitary bronze was all that we had to show for Rio 2016. Dare’s Adopt-an-athlete initiative was the clincher working well to revive the sector while his Adopt-Facility-for – Renovation brought in both Aliko Dangote and Adebutu Kessington (Baba Ijebu) into helping to restore life back to both the Abuja National Stadium and the Sports City in Lagos.
In Football, the king of sports in Nigeria, Super Eagles qualified for the 2021 AFCON as well as the 2022 World Cup Playoffs. However, it was the below-par quality displayed by Super Eagles that sent German Gernot Rohr packing from the Nigerian job. Austin Eguavoen was therefore appointed on interim basis to lead the team to AFCON in Cameroon. Although Portuguese Jose Peseiro’s appointment as Nigeria’s substantive gaffer has been confirmed, he is to remain on the sideline for Eguavoen to finish the AFCON duty.
Both Nigeria’s male and female teams failed to qualify for the Olympic football team events.
In the senior women’s football section, the Super Falcons were not impressive under Randy Waldrum. At this year’s Summer Series – a Four-Nation Tournament involving Jamaica, Portugal and host, the USA women’s teams, Falcons suffered two losses and drew one.
Even at the Maiden Aisha Buhari Cup hosted here in Lagos, South Africa’s Banyana Banyana, rubbed in our faces the slide in the game in Nigeria, spanking Asisat Oshoala and her colleagues inside the refurbished Onikan waterfront renamed Mobolaji Johnson Arena on the Lagos Island. The Under-20 team however redeemed the country by qualifying for the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Costa Rica next year.
The much attention and hope played on the country’s male and female teams to Tokyo 2020 however ended in despair. As the only African country to present both the male and female teams at the Olympics for the first time, the mostly America-based players gave so much hopes. Nigerians had reasons to expect so Uche from the male basketball team, D’Tigers in particular. They recorded some earth-shaking results against Argentina and the USA in a pre-Olympic exhibition tournament held in the Las Vegas. But at the games proper, they team lost all their matches but still showed a lot of promise. Same for the female team, D’Tigress.
Only D’Tigress salvaged the country’s image in the game in the continent. The Nigerian girls won the AfroBasket for the consecutive third year running while the male team failed .
The infighting in the NBBF however has caused an interregnum in the running of the basketball body. No elections held to elect Ahmadu Kida’s successor.
