Lesson From the Beijing Olympics

At last, the 2008 Beijing, Olympics have ended in China after almost 18 days of active competition by the 205 nations that participated leaving behind it a lot of lessons and memories especially for the designated giant of Africa, Nigeria.

Nigeria was represented at the competition by 153 man Contingent comprising 90 athletes who competed in 10 sports accompanied by 63 officials. At the end of the championship, Nigeria won one silver and three bronze medals to become 61st on the overall medal table.

The just concluded Olympic apart from exposing the weaker part of Nigeria sports Administrators, went a long way in serving as an image maker for us. For instance, no Nigerian athlete was indicated out of the 4,500 tests conducted on athletes under the auspices of the international Olympic committee and the world anti doping agency.
On the other hand, our performance showed laxity in our preparation at all compartments of the games except on the male soccer (dream team IV).

The harsh weather under which our football team (dream team IV) played the final match with Argentina showed that the boys never acclimatized with the weather. The weather was too hot that FIFA and IOC (Organizing Body) decided to allow players two minutes in each half of the game to sip water to fight dehydration. Argentines were better exposed and that was an advantage for them.

Our boys were very good having played all their group preliminaries, and winning U.S.A, Japan, the Netherlands, Ivory Coast and Belgium in quarter and semi finals.
Our athletes were poorly prepared both collectively and individually and this could be traceable to inadequate preparation. For instance, in tennis, one of our athletes complained of inferior racket while one of our boxers was very uncomfortable with the sophistication of the floor of the ring he was using for the very first time.

Nigerian newly discovered track king crashed out of the 100 meters race second round heat while our women’s triple jumper leapt 13.19 meter to finish 16th out of a seventeen women event. Our women shot put star, who has dominated the event in Nigeria for almost a decade, did not go beyond the opening round of the event in China.
Our women football (super falcons) did not qualify from their group having lost all their games.

In my humble opinion, Nigeria’s preparation and participation at the just concluded Beijing Olympics in China was fraught with inadequacies.